Kemp signs Georgia’s 2027 budget focused on growth and restrained spending

Gov. Brian Kemp signed the budget for fiscal year 2027 on Tuesday saying that the plan will keep Georgia prosperous while also limiting government spending.

“As I always say, our job is to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, because that’s the people’s money, not the government’s! That’s why we’ve saved or returned over $12 billion to the taxpayers, and why we’ll save them even more through the tax cuts I signed yesterday,” Kemp said.

The budget prioritizes education, public safety, community and behavioral health and agriculture and forestry industries, Kemp said.

While the budget maintains existing programs, it also allocates new funding to literacy programs for public schools and retirement benefits for state law enforcement.

“Let me be clear: we’re talking about new spending; we aren’t making any cuts to or rolling back any parts of current programs. We’re preserving existing services while bringing total spending into alignment with projected revenues, just like every Georgia household has to do,” Kemp said.

Kemp did warn that the state may need to rely on reserve funds to meet the needs of the new budget and cautioned the use of the funds on long-term projects.

“But here again, I want to stress something I mentioned in my state of the state address back in January: reserves are a limited, one-time resource. As I’ve said before: you can’t spend one-time money on long-term liabilities,” he said.

Kemp said the budget will need to be monitored through the amendment period to ensure the spending does not outpace revenues.