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Thanks to an unexpectedly large state budget surplus for 2021, Georgia’s governor wants to pay off a $150 million backlog of workers’ compensation benefits due to state employees.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget director said last week that the surplus, partly the result of pandemic payments from the federal government, topped $3.7 billion for fiscal 2021. Some of that has been placed in reserve and the governor wants to refund some of it to taxpayers, according to the Center Square news site.

Part of the surplus would be used to pay off claims from injured state workers, some of which have been pending since the 1980s. Georgia lawmakers would have to approve the spending for the remainder of this fiscal year and ratify the budget for next year.

The Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said that reducing the state’s liabilities to its employees would give state agencies more wiggle room in their budgets.

Topics Workers' Compensation Georgia