Appropriations subcommittee hears amended FY26 agency requests; auditors, insurers and IT chiefs flag funding and capacity gaps

The Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations on State and Local Government met in an early-morning session to review amended fiscal 2026 budget requests from multiple state agencies and to question agency leaders about program capacity, planned technology upgrades and new or growing liabilities.

The hearing covered a range of items that could affect oversight and services across Georgia: the state auditor urged a phased expansion of school-system audits, officials described funding needs for cybersecurity and eligibility-system modernization, the Department of Administrative Services outlined seed money for a new wrongful-conviction compensation trust, the insurance office flagged widespread fraud and disaster-claim bottlenecks, and the Department of Labor described a trust-fund balance well below federal solvency guidance.

State Auditor Greg Griffin told the panel the department’s amended FY26 request includes technical adjustments and two items of note: asking the Senate to remove a $236,000 data-analytics subscription line kept in the House version of the bill, and planning a three-year phased expansion of audits to bring roughly one-third of public school systems into regular audit coverage. "We currently do not audit about 50 of the public school systems," Griffin said, and he told senators the department would prioritize higher-risk districts in the first year, estimating about 12 such moderate- to high-risk systems that are not currently audited.

Department leaders and committee members pressed on enforcement and criteria for risk classification. Griffin said the department cannot make school boards timely, auditable and that proposed legislation would define "audit readiness" and help determine which districts should be audited first.

Bo Fears, Commissioner of Banking and Finance, asked for two examiner positions to support oversight of merchant-acquirer limited-purpose banks—charters already granted to firms including Fiserv, Stripe and Checkout.com—and described technology needs. He said the department’s backup systems are outdated and that a hybrid on-premises/cloud solution would cut recovery time from weeks to under four hours. On automation, Fears emphasized the agency would seek a limited AI solution that would not be trained on or expose confidential data.

Gerald Hines, the state accounting officer, requested $10.38 million in one-time funds to continue Teamworks ERP support for the Department of Transportation after a delayed go-live date for the Georgia at Work system. Hines said Teamworks supports more than 200 agencies and roughly 78,000 employees, and separating G DOT’s go-live date required additional short-term funding.

DOAS Commissioner Rebecca Sullivan outlined two notable items in the amended budget: support for the statewide one-time $2,000 salary supplement for full-time employees and a $4.88 million seed appropriation to establish a wrongful-conviction compensation trust fund managed by the state treasurer. Sullivan said the recommendation was based on cases advanced through preliminary hearings and that the fund will be seeded in the amended budget until a normalized annual amount can be determined.

Committee members followed with questions about caseload and adjudication. Lisa Vogs, deputy chief judge with the Office of State Administrative Hearings, said SB244 (the wrongful-conviction and incarceration act) went into effect July 1, 2025, and that OSA had ramped up judges and staff to manage claims. Multiple speakers noted there are pending claims and that, to date, roughly 21 claims had been denied while 13 remained pending; OSA said payments are issued only after a final judgment exceeding any appeal windows.

Shanzia Thomas, Georgia’s state chief information officer and executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority, asked the subcommittee to restore a $2.5 million cut to the agency’s $7.5 million cybersecurity request and described a $35 million request to complete an integrated eligibility modernization for SNAP, TANF and Medicaid functions. GTA also proposed using technology-empowerment funds for ERP timeline expansion and systems work across agencies.

The office of the Insurance Commissioner (speaker not named in the transcript) reported returning about $3 million to the treasury due to shifts in funding streams and defended investments in inspections and safety staffing ahead of large events. The commissioner warned the state faces a high level of insurance fraud—"We're number three in the nation for insurance fraud," the agency official said—and described work with district attorneys and a plan to offer legal support to prosecute fraud. The office also raised ongoing issues with disaster-related claims, saying some remains unresolved because contractor capacity has been constrained in the region.

Labor Commissioner Barbara River Holmes summarized the Department of Labor’s transformation and modernization work, requested roughly $3.2 million in targeted FY26 funding for recruitment, equipment replacement and career-center rent coverage, and gave a stark trust-fund update: "Georgia's unemployment insurance trust fund balance stands at $1.98 billion," she said, a figure the department noted is below the U.S. Department of Labor's solvency threshold of about $3.48 billion.

Revenue Commissioner Frank Oonnell outlined requests for core system upgrades, including funds for a driver-records and integrated tax system modernization (the so-called Core 26 upgrade). O'Connell said the department is seeking funds to modernize system architecture and security and noted the broader policy choice before lawmakers between using undesignated surplus for tax refunds or homeowner tax-relief grants.

Deputy Secretary of State Matt Tyer described two election-related items in the amended request: about $1.88 million for human-readable-text ballot scanning to comply with SB189 and a $5 million governor recommendation to reimburse counties for full hand counts in two statewide elections; he said counties could perform those hand counts after county canvass but before state certification if the legislature adjusts deadlines.

Andrew Turnage, executive director of the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, reported 19 open dispensaries, that the program serves patients certified for qualifying conditions, and that federal rescheduling from Schedule I to III would primarily affect university research possibilities rather than the commission’s day-to-day regulatory operations.

The subcommittee posed detailed operational questions to agency leaders throughout the session but took no formal votes; the chair adjourned the hearing after the presentations and questioning.

What’s next: lawmakers will weigh these agency requests as they craft the amended FY26 appropriations, and several items—restoring cybersecurity funds, choices about surplus refunds versus homeowner tax relief, the wrongful-conviction trust seed amount, and decisions on expanding school audits—will require further legislative or administrative follow-up.