Latest news with #RickyandAlyssa'sLaw
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gov. Kemp's amended budget includes $50 million in school safety grants
ATLANTA (WJBF) – The Georgia Senate has given the green light on three legislative bills to improve school safety in the state. Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones said these bills will build on school safety initiatives to keep both students and teachers safe. Just last week, Governor Brian Kemp signed the FY 2025 amended budget which allocates $50 million dollars for school safety grants. Senate Bill 17, or Ricky and Alyssa's Law, will require all Georgia schools to have mobile panic alarms to alert first responders. Senate Bill 61 will strengthen the state's law so attempted murders and terror acts towards schools by juveniles will be tried as adults. Senate Bill 179 will require transferring students to show their academic and disciplinary records to the new school within 10 days, and let the parents or guardian to know about the transfer within 5 days. Lawmakers are using the school shooting last year at Appalachee High School on how to strengthen safety. 'In this situation at Apalachee High School, that was not as appropriate as it could have been. Certainly the security officers limited the mortality related to that shooting,' said State Senator Ben Watson. State house lawmakers will review the bills in committee and may add changes to the legislation, but will have to do so before session ends up on April 4. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Georgia Senate unanimously passes bill requiring panic buttons in all schools
Students wait to be picked up by their parents after a school shooting took place on September 4, 2024 in Winder. Two teachers and two students were killed and multiple students were September, the Barrow County Sheriff's Office was bombarded with alerts of a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder. The school had issued panic buttons to its teachers a week earlier, which allowed them to alert officers within minutes after a 14-year-old gunman first opened fire. '(The panic button) was extremely helpful in what we did that day of the incident,' Sheriff Jud Smith said in an interview. 'I think there were over 20 alerts from people in that general area that was able to help us (get to) where we needed to go.' The panic buttons were tested at a different school just a few hours before the shooting. 'It had been implemented about a week prior but that was the first day we tested it,' Smith said. '7:30 a.m. that morning is when the first test of it had gone off to let us know that it was, in fact, working.' Even with the quick response, two teachers and two students were killed in the shooting. Nine others were injured. In the wake of the shooting, Senate Bill 17, called 'Ricky and Alyssa's Law', unanimously passed the state Senate on Thursday. The bill seeks to put panic buttons in every public and private school across Georgia, as well as provide location data to emergency services. The bill is partly named after Richard 'Ricky' Aspinwall, a football coach and math teacher at Apalachee, who was fatally shot during the shooting. His name is commemorated alongside Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Since her passing, legislation bearing the name Alyssa's Law has been implemented in 10 other states with Georgia following close behind. Georgia's legislation intends to establish faster contact between emergency services and schools by requiring schools adopt panic buttons. 'The goal is to increase coordination, reduce response times and, when a medical emergency or an active shooter type event is happening, basically get people quicker to the assailant, quicker to the incident that's happening and cut time off the clock to save lives,' said the bill's sponsor, Dallas Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte. The bill would also provide first responders with digital mapping data of schools, such as main entrances or first aid kit locations. In a committee meeting, Aleisha Rucker-Wright, director at Georgia Emergency Communications Authority, highlighted the 'disparate technology' in 911 centers. 'Our current 911 (mapping) infrastructure is still the same infrastructure that was installed in the 1960s,' she said. 'We have some 911 centers that if you were to enter and ask them to show you their mapping data, it's literally a printed map on the wall or it may be a Google map.' Anavitarte said 'over half the school districts in Georgia' already use similar panic button systems. CENTEGIX, a tech safety company, said it already provides such systems to several school districts, including Douglas, Clayton and Cherokee counties. Some gun safety advocates say implementing the bill would face challenges, and they argue the measure doesn't address the underlying issues of gun violence. 'In my estimation, we have so many schools and it would be a very hard job to implement all of the safety features that would prevent against these terrible tragedies,' said Heather Hallett, organizer of Georgia Majority for Gun Safety. Hallett said she isn't against these measures but maintains that regulating gun access would have a greater impact than school panic buttons. '(School shootings) are horrific and they are attention grabbing and I think that it makes people feel very unsettled,' she said. 'But the truth of the matter is unintentional injuries, suicide and regular violence are much bigger components of the problem, and that's the much bigger percentage of childhood death and injury from firearms. 'I just think it's missing the mark. The most logical approach to this is that states that control for access have much lower rates of gun violence,' she said. The bill's efforts would be funded by the $108.9 million in school security grants allocated in this year's state budget, averaging around $41,000 for each K-12 school. With the additional $50 million for school safety proposed in the amended 2026 budget, this adds another $21,000 per school. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones backed the passing of SB 17, along with two other bills – Senate Bill 61 and Senate Bill 179 – related to school safety. In addition, House lawmakers passed House Bill 268, which aims to improve school safety and threat management. All of the bills have until April 4 to make it to the governor's desk before they can become law. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Axios
07-03-2025
- Business
- Axios
What passed on Crossover Day at the Georgia General Assembly
Georgia state lawmakers worked overtime on Crossover Day on Thursday, advancing proposals to ban THC-infused drinks, require moped insurance and continue cutting the state's income tax. Why it matters: Crossover Day is the last opportunity for a bill at the Georgia General Assembly to move from one chamber to another. Though there are ways to get around it, the odds of legislation becoming law get pretty slim if the measure fails to pass the House or Senate by the end of Crossover Day. Zoom in: Here are important pieces of legislation that passed Thursday. Escaped the House Income tax: State reps OK'd cutting the state income tax rate and sending up to $500 tax refunds — legislative priorities for Gov. Brian Kemp that cost nearly $2 billion — to Georgia residents. Democrats said the tax cut would mostly benefit the affluent, with most people living on low and middle incomes seeing a roughly $70 annual benefit. "Y'all, you can't even afford a dozen eggs for $6 a month," House Minority Whip Sam Park (D-Lawrenceville) said. MARTA: Lawmakers approved MARTA's request to mount cameras on buses that will ticket the owners of cars parked in the Summerhill bus rapid transit-only line. More Mulberry: A proposal to expand the city limits of the recently created City of Mulberry to include 45 houses, business and other properties passed with Democrats who represent the Gwinnett County area leading the opposition. Vroom vroom: House reps overwhelmingly supported legislation requiring moped drivers to carry insurance to cover accident liability claims. Survived the Senate Cannabis and medical marijuana: Lawmakers added surprise language on legislation limiting the total amount of Delta-8 THC and Delta-9 THC in hemp-infused products with an outright ban on drinks with the psychoactive compounds. Yes, but: Not long afterward, senators passed legislation upping the maximum potency of low-THC oil available through Georgia's medical marijuana program. School safety: Named after victims of the Apalachee High School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings, "Ricky and Alyssa's Law" would require school systems to install panic alarm systems. The Senate also approved legislation that would make "terroristic threat of a school or terroristic act upon a school" a felony offense. What's next: Lawmakers in the chamber across the Capitol get to craft — or in General Assembly-speak, "perfect" — laws that affect residents and businesses' rights, safety and bank accounts. What's next: Lawmakers reconvene on Monday, March 10. Sine Die, the final day of the legislative session, is Friday, April 4.
