Troup County’s two representatives in the state Senate agree that solving Georgia’s budget deficit is their biggest challenge. Legislators have spent the last week caucusing; the session officially begins Monday.

“I’ve told people, it’s just like I do with my own family,” said Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland. “We’re going to sit down and figure out what we need and how much we have to spend.”

The state budget this year will see “a lot of cutting,” however, Harp said. He estimates $300 million will wind up taken out of the state Board of Regents spending plan. Harp is chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee.

“That’s 10 to 11 percent of their entire budget,” he said. “You can’t make those kinds of cuts without layoffs.”

Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, said he’s already spent at least 100 hours with a committee looking at the “proper funding level” for state programs and identifying potential cuts.

“There’s very few state programs that aren’t worth the money, but the state can’t do everything,” Seabaugh said.

He said he’s identified a few programs he believes the state shouldn’t be involved in and others where simple changes can save large amounts of money.

“There are a lot of state programs, especially in the Department of Corrections, where copies of reports have to be sent to different locations,” he said. “In this age of e-mail, why can’t we do that electronically and save that printing costs.”

In another example, Seabaugh said the state creates maps of all the airports in Georgia. However, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t approve the maps and they can’t be used.

“So why are we doing that?” he asked.

Seabaugh also believes most state programs could make major cuts in administrative costs.

“That’s how businesses streamline and that’s how they’re profitable,” he said.

Harp and Seabaugh say they’ll be reintroducing some legislation they tried to pass in 2008. For Harp, that means legislators will revisit a measure to allow alcohol sales on Sundays. Harp said last week the bill has more support this year, the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee is a signer on the bill and Gov. Sonny Perdue is on board.

“Plus I’m sure the state would like the revenue source,” he said.

Seabaugh said he’ll be reintroducing a measure that would allow counties to decide between sales tx and property tax as its revenue source.

“It’s part of the tax reform we tried to do last year,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot of favorable feedback on it.”

Both Harp and Seabaugh say they support a measure being introduced by Rep. Ed Lindsey, R-Buckhead, that would cap property tax assessments.

“That has legs,” Harp said. “It will probably pass within the first week.”

Seabaugh said the measure will help the state’s seniors citizens, some of whom have property values rising higher than their incomes, making it hard to pay rising tax bills.

Seabaugh also will be proposing changes to a law passed last year allowing concealed weapons to be carried into public buildings. Critics argued clarification of which public areas guns are allowed is needed.

“It’s sensible for us to do,” he said.

The senators are split on their thoughts of a $1 cigarrette tax. Harp says he doesn’t smoke and doesn’t have an opinion either way; Seabaugh said: “I am 100 percent against it.”

“It’s a tax on such a small part of the population,” Seabaugh said. “This is what we wind up doing, we wind up finding these small groups and raising taxes. I’m just opposed to tax increases in general. It’s not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem. If we werent spending so much, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Harp said his proposal to merge Georgia’s black colleges would wind up saving the state money. The legislature can’t mandate the merger, but can pass an “urging resolution,” which he expects to happen.

Harp said the legislators will pass a balanced budget during the session.

“We’re going to do our darndest,” he said. “We have no choice. The constitution mandates we do it.”

Jennifer Shrader may be reached at jshrader@ lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 236.