State Senate Summary

CHUCK HUFSTETLER Finance Chair District 52

It is certainly an honor to represent Northwest Georgia in the State Senate.

This is the beginning of my eighth year in the Georgia Senate and I am pleased to represent four counties in NW Georgia. It has been a good time to be a part of Georgia’s leadership and my fourth year as Chair of finance. For the first time, we have seen three straight years of fully funding the QBE formula for our schools. With schools fully funded, teacher pay raises maintain our educators as the best paid in the Southeast.

We have also enjoyed having Georgia named as a ‘best state to do business with’ for six consecutive years. We have seen our port of Savannah, which is the second busiest port on the East Coast, continue at a record-breaking level. Since Northwest Georgia gets and ships more goods through the port than any other area of the state, it is vital to our economic growth.

We have been able to double our investments in transportation while increasing our rainy-day fund balance to three billion dollars, its highest level. And, in my first 2-year term as Finance Chair, I was pleased to sponsor legislation which doubled the personal exemptions and reduce the top income tax rate of 6% down to 5.75%, as of one year ago. This is the first income tax rate reduction since the income tax was implemented in 1934.

adigeorgia.com We have also sent a plan to the Federal government to use our share of the federal dollars to provide (through Medicaid waivers) health insurance and subsidies to working families who make up to 400% of the poverty level, and I have pushed for these as early as five years ago.

A healthy, educated workforce is vital to our continued growth. Preventative care to those who don’t receive it can keep families heathy—much better than showing up in the emergency room when health issues are out of control and much more expensive. We have all heard the saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It is best to pay for the ounce instead of the whole pound and, as a result, have a healthier more productive population.

This session will be one of our more challenging from a budget standpoint, but long-term, the State of Georgia is the envy of the business nation. I am proud to be a small part of it, and it is certainly an honor to represent Northwest Georgia in the State Senate.