Georgia’s Department of Corrections Budget

Georgia’s Department of Corrections (GDC) FY 2024 budget 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.

Bills passed in 2023 further increased funds for incarceration including pay raises geared at employee retention, 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 improved 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 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 compounding 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 fines and fees revenue 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 Georgia’s record-level incarceration. They form a vicious cycle of incarceration of people of color, entangling them with stacking penalties at the local level which are driven by the fines and fees revenue they generate. Economically weak localities are more likely to over rely 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 criminal legal systems and 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. These factors further exacerbate expansion of the criminal legal system and grow 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.

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

Jariel Davis, Southern Education Leadership Initiative Fellow jdavis@gbpi.org

Hillary Dong, Health Policy Fellow hdong@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

Ruth Boyajian, Fund Georgia’s Future Coordinator rboyajian@gbpi.org

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

The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute

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