Henry County supervisors adopt resolution opposing mandatory collective bargaining after state legislative update
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Summary
After a wide-ranging General Assembly briefing from State Sen. Bill Stanley, the Henry County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution opposing mandatory collective bargaining (SB 378 / HB 1263), citing fiscal and local-authority concerns; the vote was recorded as 5 in favor with 1 abstention.
The Henry County Board of Supervisors on March 24 adopted a resolution urging the governor and General Assembly to preserve local authority and oppose legislation that would mandate collective bargaining for local governments.
State Sen. Bill Stanley (7th District) briefed the board on dozens of bills pending on the governor's desk, saying the 2026 session produced "the most consequential slate of legislation for local governments in a generation," including Senate Bill 378 and companion House language (identified in the meeting packet as HB 1263). Stanley warned those measures would create a statewide Public Employee Relations Board (PERB), require collective bargaining and final-and-binding arbitration in many disputes, and could impose heavy, unfunded fiscal obligations on counties such as Henry.
"If a group of employees petition and vote to form bargaining units, the locality must bargain collectively in good faith over wages, hours and other terms," Stanley said. He told the board arbitration outcomes could force financial commitments beyond local budgets and predicted the new system would be costly to implement.
Supervisor Buchanan read a locally prepared resolution that said mandatory collective bargaining would "divert limited local resources from core services" and create "unfunded mandate(s) with significant administrative and litigation risk." The board discussed the uncertainty over the scale of the fiscal impact and whether state rulemaking would further limit local input. One supervisor said she would abstain because she had just seen the resolution language and wanted more time to review it.
The board adopted the resolution urging rejection of SB 378 and HB 1263 and asking the governor and members of the General Assembly to preserve local authority; the clerk recorded the vote as five in favor and one abstention.
The resolution will be transmitted to the governor and the county's legislators, according to the board's action.
What happens next: the bills named by the senator face the governor's action by April 13 and a reconvened veto session beginning later in April, the senator told the board. The county's resolution is declaratory and intended to inform the county's legislative outreach and public record.
