Human Services

FY 2024 Budget for Human Services

The FY 2024 budget includes $985 million for the Department of Human Services (DHS). It also includes a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for state workers and funds to hire several hundreds of Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) eligibility workers to support the state’s Medicaid Unwinding process. This process will redetermine the eligibility of 3 million Georgians after the end of continuous health coverage, which expired in March. The FY 2024 proposal increases investment in the agency by $65 million more than the lawmakers approved last year. The budget for DHS is about $156 million more than the FY 2020 budget, which legislators passed before the start of the pandemic.

FY 2024 Budget Would Include $985 Million for the Department of Human Services

Child welfare, foster care and adoption-related services account for about 63 percent of the agency’s budget. The next biggest share of spending is federal low-income assistance programs such as Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), accounting for 16 percent of the agency’s budget. Smaller programs such as elder care services, child support services and vocational training for adults with disabilities account for the remaining funds.

Major Changes to Medicaid Will Test DHS After Years-Long Disinvestment

DHS’s intent to hire 450 eligibility staff and increase salaries by $2,000 are positive steps. However, these measures don’t go far enough to address years of disinvestment by lawmakers in the state government’s workforce, which has contributed to the current staffing crisis. In FY 2022, DHS’s 30.3 percent turnover rate was higher than the state government’s. In DFCS, the workforce dropped by 16 percent between FY 2017 and FY 2022. Furthermore, the number of DFCS frontline staff processing Medicaid, SNAP and TANF cases declined over the past two years. As of March 2023, the staffing level for these workers was below 1,400, its lowest point since the start of the pandemic. Many vacant positions are still unfunded and thus unable to be filled, even with stronger hiring.

DFCS Has Lost about 16 Percent of Its Total Workforce Since FY 2017

2024 Fiscal Year Highlights

DHS’ budget includes $65 million in additional state funds for FY 2024 including:

• $15.4 million for the $2,000 COLA increase for full-time state employees.

• $11.1 million to hire 450 additional Medicaid eligibility caseworkers and 75 supervisors to support the state’s Medicaid Unwinding process. The state will also use federal Medicaid funds to help cover the cost of hiring new staff.

• $15.2 million to supplement state funds for loss of federal Foster Care Title IV-E funds to group homes caring for foster care children.

• $5 million to provide alternative housing and services for foster care youth with complex needs. This addresses the hoteling crisis where youth with complex needs may have to spend one or multiple nights in a DFCS office or a hotel because their foster care parent or group home can no longer care for them.

• The governor directed the Vocational Rehabilitation agency to disregard more than $400,000 from its budget for initiatives like the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the blind, independent living services and employment services for transplant recipients.

Note: Total active count.

Source: Department of Administrative Services’ Workforce Reports from FY 2017 to FY 2022.

DFCS will not only redetermine 3 million Medicaid cases this year but will also launch Pathways to Coverage, the governor’s narrow Medicaid expansion that includes include work requirements. Because of persistent turnover, these two major initiatives impacting millions of Georgians will be implemented by mostly inexperienced staff. It will take several months for the state to hire 450 new caseworkers and fully train them to manage these enormous tasks. Yet even with training, it may be another few months to a year before new staff fully understand their role. Case managers’ workloads will remain high despite automatic renewals for many clients. High workloads combined with inexperienced staff will inevitably result in mistakes. These errors could mean an unnecessary loss of coverage for potentially thousands of children or seniors. Furthermore, news reports of delayed SNAP payments, which help people afford the cost of food, signal the workforce issues impact more than just Medicaid.

These growing pains may be worthwhile if DHS builds a more competent workforce that can effectively and efficiently get Georgians the benefits and services they need to be economically secure and protected from abuse and neglect over time. However, state leaders must be willing to take actionable steps now not just to hire but to retain staff. Such measures should include professional development, benefits like paid family medical leave, competitive starting salaries and a system of merit-based raises. Next year’s budget is another opportunity to consider some of these options.

Georgia’s 2023 Department of Labor Budget

The $8.1 million included in the FY 2024 budget for the Georgia Department of Labor (DOL) increases spending from FY 2023 levels by over $2 million. This increase is driven by pay raises that seek to improve staff recruitment and retention.

The bulk of FY 2024 state spending for the DOL will go to two divisions: (1) Department Administration, which provides administrative support to each program division within DOL, and (2) Unemployment Insurance (UI), which collects UI taxes from state employers and distributes unemployment benefits to eligible claimants. Each of Georgia’s DOL divisions administer programs that are funded by a significant share of federal dollars, which covers 84 percent of FY 2024 DOL spending, a slight decrease from FY 2023 as federal spending remained steady compared to state spending increases.

FY 2024 may hold fiscal uncertainty for DOL, as supplemental “administrative assessment” funding from employer payroll taxes expired under previous legislation and won’t resume through newly passed legislation for several months. Since 2016, administrative assessment funding has provided DOL with an average of $21 million per year, which is typically three to four times the amount lawmakers appropriate to DOL annually through general funds. With the possibility of another recession looming, DOL does not hold the claims technology infrastructure nor adequate UI Trust reserves to process and pay out significant UI claims should Georgia’s labor market significantly weaken.

Unemployment Disparities Within Georgia’s Current Labor Market Could Translate to Even Steeper Inequities in a Future Recession

A gradual economic slowdown has started, despite a labor market that remains broadly strong and has seen jobs return and surpass prepandemic levels in every major industry except its public sector. Several factors demonstrate that Georgia’s longstanding workforce disparities across race and ethnicity could worsen under a continued slowdown: disparate unemployment shifts among Black and white workers; net rises in underemployment among Black workers and Latina women from 2019 to 2022; and increases in overrepresentation of Black workers on UI rolls not seen since 2021.

Criminal Legal Systems

Georgia’s Department of Corrections Budget

Georgia’s Department of Corrections (GDC) budget for fiscal year (FY) 2024 is $1.33 billion. GDC oversees all aspects of the state’s prison system, including contracts carried out by private prisons. Corrections officers make up most of the department’s workforce. GDC corrections officers have experienced higher turnover than the Georgia state employee average, which recently exceeded historic highs of over 25 percent but generally less than 30 percent. In comparison, GDC corrections officer turnover rates have ranged from 35 percent in FY 2018, to 57 percent in FY 2021 and then 48 percent turnover in FY 2022.

Pay raises were recently implemented to help ameliorate turnover but have also grown spending on incarceration. Bills passed in 2023 further increased funds for incarceration, with FY 2024 becoming a second consecutive year of prison spending growth. In contrast, pre-2020 bills sought to reverse rising incarceration trends, and 2020 and 2021 bills sought better cost-efficiency and post-incarceration outcomes.

GDC FY 2024 spending is $48 million higher than FY 2023 spending and more than $200 million higher than FY 2022 spending. This increased investment in corrections, which includes expanding the state- and countylevel prison infrastructure as well as increased spending for staff pay and retention, fails to address persistent economic inequities across race and ethnicity. It also perpetuates the state’s criminal legal system spending imbalances, further weakening its due process functions. Collectively, these spending choices exacerbate the pernicious effects of mass incarceration.

Despite hundreds of millions in new spending, GDC maintains elevated commissary prices implemented in AFY 2020 and FY 2021. These higher costs make it harder for incarcerated Georgians to access basic necessities, placing more economic strain on those who support them.

Georgia’s Criminal Legal System Policies Help Maintain Its Leading Incarceration Rate

Per the Prison Policy Initiative, Georgia’s incarceration rate, which includes those in prisons and jails and on probation and parole, is 2.5 times higher than the national average.

Georgia inadequately supports proactive long-term investments, such as workforce development and public education that create pathways to livable-wage jobs and boost local tax revenue, which could support cash-strapped local governments. Furthermore, policies are needed to insulate local criminal legal systems from their local executive branch’s revenue interests and provide safeguards for Georgians earning low incomes who face spiraling fines and fees. These practices perpetuate an abusive and disproportionate reliance on criminal legal system debts to fund government operations.

Georgia also has a state legal framework that has allowed at least 26 localities to weaponize their criminal legal systems through abusive fines and fees practices that forcibly extract wealth from Georgians experiencing poverty, at rates that are at least 20 times higher than the national average. Consequently, Georgians experiencing poverty and entangled in fines and fees debt often spiral into probation or incarceration, contributing to Georgia’s record rate of correctional control.

Georgia inadequately supports proactive long-term investments, such as workforce development and public education that create pathways to livablewage jobs and boost local tax revenue, which could support cash-strapped local governments. Furthermore, policies are needed to insulate local criminal legal systems from their local executive branch’s revenue interests and provide safeguards for Georgians earning low incomes who face spiraling fines and fees. These practices perpetuate an abusive and disproportionate reliance on criminal legal system debts to fund government operations.

Recent years of accelerated of state GDC spending, coupled with the state’s general failure to monitor and protect Georgians from instances of local government fine and fee abuse, represent both overinvestment and underinvestment of state resources.

These two contrasting realities ultimately drive the state’s nation-leading incarceration rate. They form a vicious cycle of incarceration of people of color, with individuals becoming entangled with stacking penalties at the local level, penalty assessments being incentivized by the fines and fees revenue they generate, and economically weak localities more likely to overrely on that revenue. Those stacking penalties can eventually lead to an individual’s incarceration in a GDC facility, driving GDC population and program growth, and triggering more state investment in GDC itself. Georgia must disrupt this cycle and allocate more state funding to equitably support local governments, specifically their court systems, with funding driven by a mechanism like a state opportunity weight for K-12 school districts, with more funding allocated to geographic areas experiencing higher poverty rates.

The state has already shown that it is willing to pursue local intervention in the area of CLS, but unfortunately does so in ways that fuel mass incarceration and racial inequity. For example, recent state-level initiatives have included removing discretion from local law enforcement and prosecutors the state views as “soft” on crime, ultimately leading to heavier penalties like stacking fees, pay-only probation and jail time, again further exacerbating expansion of the criminal legal system and further state spending on GDC.

Looking Ahead

The fiscal year 2024 budget continues a disappointing trend of the state hoarding resources to build large cash reserves rather than using its undesignated surplus to address long-standing needs related to health care access, public education and economic mobility. With protections under the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ending and the rising cost of living, struggling communities are at risk of falling deeper into economic decline. State leaders should use the multi-billion-dollar undesignated fund balance to address these urgent needs.

Although lawmakers made minor improvements in education and health care—such as small pay raises for teachers; improving higher education funding, including increasing the HOPE Career Grant award from $1,000 to $1,250 for students in Commercial Driver’s License and Law Enforcement programs at the Technical College System of Georgia; and removing the Medicaid/PeachCare five-year wait period for pregnant women and children who are lawful permanent residents—these efforts don’t go far enough to support Georgians, especially Black communities in Georgia who were already impacted by decades of divestment and a lack of government accountability and transparency.

Moreover, the state’s plan to shift to a flat tax model outlined in HB1437 passed in 2022 will provide a financial windfall to the wealthy, while middleand low-wage earners see little, if any, benefit. GBPI urges lawmakers to reverse their decision and consider progressive tax reform. Gutting state revenues in favor of a flat tax system means less funding can be used to improve roads, bridges, public education, higher education and health care. Policies to better support Georgians should include:

• Making health care more accessible by fully expanding Medicaid

• Defending Georgia’s safety net programs (including food assistance, cash assistance and Unemployment Insurance)

• Creating and funding an Opportunity Weight to better support students living in poverty

• Increasing safeguards against abusive criminal legal system fines and fees practices

• Increasing need-based aid options for students pursuing postsecondary education

• Implementing policy pathways toward transparency and racial equity around our safety net programs

These and many other improvements are possible; Georgia has the resources—it is simply a matter of political will. Advocates and leaders should be resolute in championing inclusive and equitable policies that allow every Georgian to participate in the fullness of our state’s prosperity.

Contact

GBPI Leadership Team

Staci Fox, President & CEO sfox@gbpi.org

Dominique Derbigny Sims, Senior Vice President dderbignysims@gbpi.org

Kevin Amaya, Director of Development kamaya@gbpi.org

Lauren Frazier, Director of Strategic Communications lfrazier@gbpi.org

Crystal Johnson, Director of Administration & Human Resources cjohnson@gbpi.org

Erin Robinson, Director of Strategic Campaigns & Outreach erobinson@gbpi.org

David Schaefer, Vice President of Research & Policy dschaefer@gbpi.org

Jessica Woods, Finance Director jwoods@gbpi.org

Research Team

Leah Chan, Director of Health Justice lchan@gbpi.org

Ife Finch Floyd, Director of Economic Justice ifinchfloyd@gbpi.org

Danny Kanso, Director of Legislative Strategy & Senior Fiscal Analyst dkanso@gbpi.org

Ray Khalfani, Senior Analyst, Worker Justice & Criminal Legal Systems rkhalfani@gbpi.org

Crystal Muñoz, Immigration Analyst cmunoz@gbpi.org

Stephen Owens, Director of Education sowens@gbpi.org

Ashley Young, Education Analyst ayoung@gbpi.org

GBPI Staff

Nadia Hicks, Senior Digital & Brand Manager nhicks@gbpi.org

Anthony Hill, Communications Manager ahill@gbpi.org

Tasnim Mosabber, Outreach Manager tmosabber@gbpi.org

Rachel Stanley, Associate Director of Development rstanley@gbpi.org

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