Perdue Signs FY 10 Budget

Governor Sonny Perdue signed the state budget for fiscal year 2010 on Wednesday. It's two point five billion dollars less than the previous budget.

Perdue calls this 18.6 billion dollar budget a "thoughtful and conservative way to ensure Georgians are receiving value for their tax dollars." Some 23 million dollars will go towards trauma care funding, with cuts to Medicaid and education spending dampened by federal stimulus dollars. Perdue also used his line item veto to axe three minor projects totalling less than two hundred thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, state tax revenues are still down, with the April numbers showing a more than twenty percent drop off from the previous year. Furloughs for state employees are likely to continue, with about twenty five thousand state workers already taking some unpaid furlough days.