New Georgia laws: Here's what goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2025
Georgia state Capitol (FOX 5)
ATLANTA - When Georgia rings in the new year on Jan. 1, 2025, a few new laws affecting how the state handles education, elections, and taxes are set to take effect.
While the majority of Georgia's laws went into effect in July, a few laws waited until the start of the year to go into action.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has already announced his plans to focus on relief efforts after Hurricane Helene and attempts to limit lawsuit verdicts when the Georgia Legislature gets back in session on Jan. 13.
Here's a closer look at a few of the laws going into effect on Jan. 1:
New school vouchers go into effect for Georgia students
Under SB 233, students who attend the lowest performing 25% of schools under Georgia’s academic rating system will be eligible to apply for $6,500 vouchers to allow for what lawmakers call "educational freedom."
The money can be spent on private school tuition, textbooks, transportation, home-schooling supplies, therapy, tutoring or even early college courses for high school students.
The Georgia Education Savings Authority, a body created to run the program, wrote rules that could open the opportunity to more than one in five children in the state, by saying that any student in such a school’s attendance zone is eligible, even if they don’t attend that school. For example, if a middle school is on the list, elementary and high school students who live in that zone can also apply.
The law capped spending at 1% of the funding formula for public schools, or $144 million. That could provide more than 22,000 vouchers if lawmakers decide to spend that much in 2025.
The authority will begin to accept applications early in 2025.
Changes to voting registration for unhoused Georgians
While much of Georgia's new election law SB-189 has already gone into effect, the section governing where homeless people register begins in January.
That section mandates that homeless people use their county’s election office to receive election-related mail. That could, in some cases, mean long journeys for people to retrieve mail, including absentee ballots and challenges to their eligibility.
The second is the subject of a lawsuit by the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, who argue that the law is unfair because all other Georgia voters can receive mail at their address of choice, even if it’s not where they reside.
New Georgia county election boards created
While probate court judges used to serve as the election superintendent for Georgia counties that did not have their own board of elections and registrations, SB-212 ends that duty as of Jan. 1, 2025. Instead, local government will give those duties to a board of elections that should be created by Dec. 15. The newly-created board will act as the county's election superintendent and run primaries and elections starting on Jan. 1.
New boards of elections have been established in counties such as Baldwin, and Evans.
Georgia adjusting reviews of state taxes
Senate Bill 366 passed last January and was a priority of Lt. Gov, Burt Jones.
The law expands the Georgia General Assembly’s ability to conduct audits and analyses of the state's tax incentive programs. Under the new law, the state will need to undergo at least a dozen economic analyses examining the state's tax measures. The Department of Audits and Accounting will post the list of analyses on its website and will share the information with independent auditors.