May 18, 2010
SMYRNA – State Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) has been recognized among the “Most Influential Georgians of the Year” in the sixth annual listing published by James magazine.
“I am appreciative of this recognition,” Stoner said. “Being included on such a distinguished list of Georgia leaders is a tremendous honor.”
Stoner is presently seeking his fourth term in the state Senate. A leading authority on transportation issues in the General Assembly, Stoner serves on the Senate Transportation Committee and special Joint Senate-House Transportation Funding Study Committee. He chairs the Intermodal Rail & Transit Subcommittee. Stoner has also chaired the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce’s Transportation Committee. A past chair of the Cobb Transit Board, he is well-versed on matters related to road and bridge construction, mass transit initiatives, commuter rail opportunities and other proposals under consideration to enhance mobility in and around Cobb and surrounding counties.
Stoner also serves as vice chair of the Senate State Institutions & Property Committee and as a member of the Senate Ethics, Regulated Industries & Utilities, Retirement and Urban Affairs committees. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has written that Doug Stoner “understands the connections among environmental, education and economic issues in improving Georgians’ quality of life.”
During his service, he has received the Georgia Association of Emergency Medical Services Star of Life Legislative Award (2007 and 2008), Georgia Association of Educators Legislator of the Year (2005), Cobb County Association of Educators Cheryl C. Rice Friend of Education Award (2005), and Georgia Conservation Voters Environmental Leadership Award (2006 and 2008). He previously represented South Cobb in the Georgia House of Representatives, and the American Cancer Society and the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention honored Doug for his legislative leadership for both the 2003 and 2004 legislative sessions.
Stoner is a lifelong resident of the 6th Senate District and is a third-generation South Cobb business owner and a member of the Smyrna Downtown Development Authority. He graduated from Campbell High School and Kennesaw State University. He is past president of the King Springs School PTA and an active member of the Smyrna Business Association and Smyrna First United Methodist Church. Stoner and his wife Della are raising their two children, Gray and Honor, in his home community of South Cobb.
Sen. Stoner announces campaign for re-election
May 4, 2010
SMYRNA – State Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) officially qualified April 26 as a candidate for re-election to the Senate District 6 post in the 2010 Democratic Primary.
“For the past six years, it has been my honor and privilege to represent the people of south Cobb County in the state Senate,” Stoner said. “I now ask the voters to put that experience to work once again, so that together we can continue to support our public schools, improve access to affordable health care and seek common-sense solutions to transportation and other issues facing our district and the entire state of Georgia.”
Stoner is seeking his fourth term in the state Senate. During his service, he has received the Georgia Association of Emergency Medical Services Star of Life Legislative Award (2007 and 2008), Georgia Association of Educators Legislator of the Year (2005), Cobb County Association of Educators Cheryl C. Rice Friend of Education Award (2005), and Georgia Conservation Voters Environmental Leadership Award (2006 and 2008). He previously represented South Cobb in the Georgia House of Representatives, and the American Cancer Society and the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention honored Doug for his legislative leadership for both the 2003 and 2004 legislative sessions.
A leading authority on transportation issues in the General Assembly, Stoner serves on the Senate Transportation Committee and special Joint Senate-House Transportation Funding Study Committee. He chairs the Intermodal Rail & Transit Subcommittee. Stoner has also chaired of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce’s Transportation Committee. A past chair of the Cobb Transit Board, he is well-versed on matters related to road and bridge construction, mass transit initiatives, commuter rail opportunities and other proposals under consideration to enhance mobility in and around Cobb and surrounding counties.
Stoner also serves as vice chair of the Senate State Institutions & Property Committee and as a member of the Senate Ethics, Regulated Industries & Utilities, Retirement and Urban Affairs committees. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has written that Doug Stoner “understands the connections among environmental, education and economic issues in improving Georgians’ quality of life.”
Stoner is a lifelong resident of the 6th Senate District and is a third-generation South Cobb business owner and a member of the Smyrna Downtown Development Authority. He graduated from Campbell High School and Kennesaw State University.
He is past president of the King Springs School PTA and an active member of the Smyrna Business Association and Smyrna First United Methodist Church.
Stoner and his wife Della are raising their two children, Gray and Honor, in his home community of South Cobb.
Senate restores status of DOT transit and intermodal work
By Ariel Hart
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 26, 2010
The state Senate has cleaned up some business from last year's transportation reorganization, passing a bill (SB 520) that would restore Division status to the state Department of Transportation's group that works on mass transit, rail and other alternatives to roads, the Intermodal office.
Last year's law laid out the divisions within DOT, and since it didn't mention the Intermodal Division, DOT officials said they had to take away its status as a division. Advocates for intermodal programs at DOT raised concerns at the time, saying it was more than bureaucratic semantics and would diminish the program's power to get things done even more. They have a hard enough time since the state's gas tax legally can only be spent on roads and bridges.
Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna), who works on non- transportation matters for a consultant that also does transportation work for the state, said that he went to Washington and met with the administration's top transportation officials. "The first thing out of their mouth was, 'What's this about you demoting your Intermodal Division?"
Participate in the 2010 Census
February 4, 2010
This year, the federal government is conducting the 2010 Census. The census is a count of everyone residing in the United States. All U.S. residents must be counted, including both citizens and non- citizens.
The census is important for a number of reasons. It will determine state population counts and determine representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as boundaries for state and local legislative and congressional districts. Census data also guides planning for new hospitals, roads, job training centers, schools and other pgorams essential to communities.
Your participation is particularly important in this year's census. Georgia is poised to pick up one or two congressional seats, expanding our representation in Congress.
You should receive your census questionnaire by mail in March. If you do not receive a questionnaire, you will be able to pick one up from several public sites. Households should complete and mail back questionnaires upon receipt. Households that do not respond may receive a replacement questionnaire in early April. Census takers will visit homes that do not return questionnaires to take a count in person.
The 2010 questionnaire consists of 10 short questions and takes about 10 minutes to complete. Households are asked to provide key demographic information, including: whether a housing unit is rented or owned; address of the residence; and the names, genders, ages and races of others living in the household. Federal law prohibits the sharing of information from the Census with any other organization or agency, so your information is secure.
I encourage everyone to participate in the 2010 Census. It is critically important and only takes a few minutes.
Georgia leaders must level with voters: there is no free lunch
December 3, 2009
In little over a month, my fellow legislators and I will be returning to Atlanta to begin a new session under the Gold Dome. This will be my eighth session of representing my hometown of Smyrna and South Cobb County, including two in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate.
The coming session appears similar to my first session in 2003. Georgia was just beginning to recover from a recession, and revenues had dropped for 18 straight months. We had nearly exhausted our reserve funds and were facing a $600 million budget shortfall.
How did my fellow legislators, along with Governor Perdue, confront this budget challenge in 2003? First, the new Governor picked the most conservative of the three projected revenue estimates for the coming year. Second, the Governor proposed a mixture of budget cuts and increases in tobacco and alcohol taxes.
It was a prudent, fiscally balanced approach that previous Governors had followed. The reasoning behind this approach was to make necessary cuts in non-essential services during a recession, while reducing the cuts on vital state services, such as education and healthcare, which are always in greater demand during economic hard times.
Unfortunately for Governor Perdue, his own party would not support him in the House. The then-Democratic majority passed the proposed mixture of cuts and a 25-cent cigarette tax increase without most of the Republican Caucus. This lack of support was due to Republican members’ desire to stay “ideologically pure” instead of joining us in governing the state’s fiscal affairs.
The Republican-controlled Senate followed suit by rejecting Governor Perdue’s budget compromise with the House, cutting $400 million out of K-12, Technical and Higher education funding. In the end, education cuts were restored to the 2004 budget.
Unfortunately, this was a sign of things to come. Since gaining control of the legislature in the 2004 election, this need by my Republican colleagues to base public policy totally on ideological purity, appeasing the 20 percent of the electorate that votes in a Republican primary, has repeated itself on many issues. From attempting to criminalize promising stem-cell research on chronic diseases at Georgia universities and in the private sector, to the $1.2 billion in state funding cuts to our local school systems, my friends across the aisle seem to be driven by the most ideological of their supporters instead of the common good for the state.
Anyone who has worked with me in the General Assembly knows that I’m a bi-partisan problem solver. But I can no longer remain silent while this partisan prison that my colleagues and friends across the aisle have constructed threatens the future prosperity of Georgia and its citizens. This partisan OCB (obsessive compulsive behavior) has served to create a looming structural budget deficit by the middle of the next decade, leaving the state unable to fund basic government services or invest in desperately needed infrastructure for job creation and viability in this 21st century global economy.
So, you ask, when is Georgia going to become a southeastern version of California? By 2015, according to projections as recent as 2008, if we continue the fiscally irresponsible belief my colleagues across the aisle repeat to themselves and anyone who will listen that we can continue to give special-interest tax breaks and tax cuts with no impact on revenues.
My father, a very successful businessman, gave me some advice on one essential truth about life: there is no free lunch. However, my colleagues have created a belief in some citizens that they should not have to pay any taxes, and somehow their city, schools, and state will still provide services. Unfortunately, due to a recession that has lasted 20 months, the bill on the supposed free lunch for Georgia and its citizens will come due three years earlier than projected – in fiscal year 2012.
Let me give you a quick scorecard of what we faced in funding the 2010 budget. The Governor and the Republican leadership faced a $3.1 billion shortfall in creating the FY 2010 budget in comparison to FY 2009.
The Governor and the General Assembly balanced the budget with over $2.2 billion in various reserve funds, Federal Stimulus dollars, and the elimination of the Homeowner Tax Relief Grant. These funds are non-recurring; therefore, they must be replaced over the next two years with another revenue source. This can only occur either from growth in current sources or adding new sources.
Otherwise, the only alternative is to cut as much as $2.2 billion on top of current cuts from the FY 2012 budget. We could start by updating our antiquated Department of Revenue, which, according to latest estimates, misses collecting nearly $1.6 billion a year in current taxes. We could also increase the cigarette tax to $1 a pack and raise between $300 million and $400 million a year, while also reducing teenage smoking.
My Republican colleagues have argued for years that we have a spending problem, but Georgia ranks in the bottom 10 states in per capita spending. They also argue that we can reduce the budget by eliminating waste and inefficiency, but Georgia has the highest performance management grade in the Southeast and is one of the top eight best-managed states in the country, according to Governing magazine.
What we have is a revenue problem. The Republican majority sees nothing wrong with giving away $1.5 billion in tax cuts and tax breaks to special interests, while at the same time slapping a $480 million tax increase (the largest in our state’s history) on everyday Georgians. The elimination of the Homeowner Tax Relief Grant is costing the average homeowner an extra $200 to $300 on an annual basis.
The special-interest tax breaks and tax cuts the Republicans are so fond of were created, for the most part, in the name of job creation. But there is no accountability on whether the purpose of those tax breaks is being fulfilled. Georgia’s unemployment rate is higher than ever. There are fewer jobs in our state now than there were at the beginning of this decade. And the Republican leaders at the Capitol call themselves “conservative”? No one in their right mind would run their private business or household budget in such a fiscally irresponsible manner.
We indeed have a revenue problem that can be solved only through fundamental tax reform, linking our budget needs to a 21st century tax system. We have to develop a fair and adequate tax structure that enables us to fund high-quality services and make long-term infrastructure investments in education, transportation and water resources if Georgia and its citizens are to prosper in the global economy.
Sen. Stoner to host Wellness & Benefits Fair on October 24
October 2, 2009
State Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) will host a Wellness & Benefits Fair for residents of Senate District 6, their families and friends on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Destiny World Church, 7400 Factory Shoals Road in Austell.
The Georgia Department of Labor will be there to provide employment resource information, and Cobb Works will have its Mobile Career Unit on site, providing computers and job-searching tools. Representatives from Right from the Start will be on hand to assist with applications for Medicaid and PeachCare, and WellStar will provide free health screenings for those in attendance.
Make plans to attend on Oct. 24!
Energy and Water Efficient Products Sales Tax Holiday
October 1, 2009
Legislation adopted during the 2009 legislative session, House Bill 120, provides for an exemption from both state and local sales and use taxes for specific energy efficient products. These exemptions apply to sales occurring Oct.1-4. The exemptions are limited to products with a purchase price of $1,500 or less that have been designated as meeting requirements of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy "Energy Star" programs.
The energy efficient products eligible for the exemption are as follows: air conditioners, ceiling fans, fluorescent light bulbs, clothes washers, dishwashers, windows (including skylights), refrigerators, programmable thermostats, dehumidifiers and doors.
The water efficient products eligible for the exemption are as follows: bathroom sink faucets or aerators, high-efficiency toilets and flushing urinals.
The exemptions are intended for items purchased for non-commercial home or personal use. The exemptions do not apply to: products not specifically listed above; products with a purchase price over $1,500; products purchased for use in a trade or business; products that are rented or leased; or sales by or to a contractor or retail dealer performing a real property construction contract as a contractor.
If you need additional information, see the answers to frequently asked questions and Regulation 560-12-2-.112. You may also contact the Taxpayer Services Division at 404-417-6601 for assistance.
Georgians encouraged to take action in flu season
September 30, 2009
The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) encourages everyone to take action and be prepared to fight the seasonal flu and novel influenza A (H1N1) viruses this fall. September is National Preparedness month and an opportunity for individuals, families and businesses to learn how to slow the spread of the disease in their communities.
"Knowing where to find reliable and timely information is a key component to ensuring that you and your family are prepared," said DCH Commissioner and Acting Public Health Director Dr. Rhonda Medows. "Make contingency plans now for your home and work place needs in the event that you or your family members become ill."
Georgians should prepare this fall and winter for higher than normal absenteeism because more than one flu virus is circulating. Current data indicates that the severity of the novel H1N1 virus has not increased but since individuals are not immune to this new virus more will be affected.
"Prepare, plan and stay informed are the keys to emergency preparedness. Prepare for an increase in the number of individuals affected by the novel H1N1 virus in schools and across businesses; plan what to do if you, your loved ones or co-workers get sick and have to stay home; and stay connected with a trusted source for up-to-date information on seasonal flu and novel H1N1," said Dr. Patrick O'Neal, director of DCH's Division of Emergency Preparedness & Response (EPR).
DCH launched the Roll Up Your Sleeve campaign in August in conjunction with the 18 health districts to educate Georgians about the importance of individuals within high-risk categories obtaining a seasonal flu and/or novel H1N1 vaccination. The campaign addresses how everyone can prevent the spread of the flu viruses, and points out the steps to take if they have symptoms.
"We cannot stop an influenza pandemic, but we may limit spread of the disease through early detection and a well-planned response," added O'Neal. "If you are not feeling well, stay home; if necessary contact your medical provider. If you are a business owner identify critical roles and cross-train employees."
Click here for more information.
Delayed state tax refunds add insult to injury
July 1, 2009
By Sen. Doug Stoner and Sen. Tim Golden
According to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s official web site, his goal is to “put Georgia at the top of national rankings for the ‘Best-Managed State in America.’ The high standards for best-managed states parallel the Perdue principles for governing a New Georgia: effectiveness, efficiency, accountability for results, and a customer-focused culture of public service.”
A customer-focused culture of public service? With hundreds of thousands of Georgia taxpayers still awaiting payment of state income tax refunds from last year, the governor must be aware the state Department of Revenue is falling well short of that goal.
There are more than 400,000 Georgians who filed their state tax returns before the April 15 deadline who have yet to receive a refund of the amount they overpaid in state taxes in 2008. The state Department of Revenue admits that it will be as late as November before it works through its backlog and all the refunds are distributed.
Gov. Perdue’s “let them eat cake” response was disappointing to say the least. He says Georgia taxpayers have been “spoiled” by timely refunds in the past. The governor seems to forget that tax refunds are not welfare checks. This money belongs to the taxpayers, not the government.
The Perdue administration’s Commissioner of Revenue, Bart Graham, offers only one excuse: his office is understaffed because of budget cuts that were ordered by none other than Gov. Perdue. In the priorities of this administration, it seems, the needs of the taxpayer always come last.
This cavalier attitude toward the taxpayers has unfortunately become all too typical in the seven years the Republican Party has been in charge of state government in Georgia – exactly the opposite of the image the GOP wants you to have.
Since taking office, Gov. Perdue and his friends in the legislature have cut approximately $2 billion in state funding to local school systems. But they did not lower your state taxes accordingly; they spent the money on other programs and tax cuts for their donors and forced your local school board to make up the difference.
Guess who ultimately got the bill, year after year: You did.
During the 2009 session of the General Assembly, Gov. Perdue and Republican leadership refused to fund the Homeowner Tax Relief Grants the state provides to local governments in order to keep property taxes down for homeowners. The result of this action will be a $200-$300 property tax increase for the average Georgia homeowner this year.
The Republican leaders and their spokespeople will argue they have passed plenty of tax cuts – for businesses and other corporate interests. We have supported most of these as well, for the purpose of economic development and fighting against the tide of manufacturing job losses in our state over the past decade. But the interests of the average individual Georgia taxpayer have unfortunately not been a high priority item on this administration’s agenda.
One in 10 Georgians sits unemployed, and this is the highest the state’s jobless rate has been in more than 20 years. Every day, the economic recession is causing more and more of our fellow citizens to lose their livelihoods, their homes and their savings accounts.
By failing to issue income tax refunds in a timely manner and passing the state’s budget problems on to local property owners, the state’s Republican leaders – who claim to be friends of the taxpayer – are not coming to the aid of their fellow Georgians. Instead, they are adding insult to injury.
Sen. Tim Golden (D-Valdosta) is chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna) is vice chair of the Senate State Institutions & Property Committee.
Transportation not a priority for Republican leaders
April 13, 2009
When our state’s legislative leaders decided to slap a utility rate increase on consumers to help Georgia Power with the future financing of a nuclear plant expansion, they rushed to get it done in a couple of weeks’ time.
But when it comes to helping those who fight Atlanta traffic to get to work every day and the communities across the state in need of better roads, a similar sense of legislative urgency was nowhere to be found. It appeared that Gov. Perdue, Lt. Gov. Cagle and Speaker Richardson either don’t know the importance of solving Georgia’s transportation problem or they don’t care.
It has now been more than two years since a Joint Senate-House Transportation Funding Study Committee was created to address why Georgia’s transportation system was failing to keep up with the needs of the state’s growing population. It was our job not only to determine the severity of the problem but also to recommend a legislative solution.
In the summer of 2007, the committee undertook this mission in a serious, bipartisan and bicameral manner. We discovered the state was facing a transportation funding shortfall of up to $8 billion to simply to keep up with our current needs over the next five years. Realistically, though, the shortfall was about $20 billion when taking the proposed and necessary improvements into account.
Certainly some innovative steps were going to be necessary. The Department of Transportation needed to be run more efficiently. Private funding incentives and toll roads were suggested as steps in the right direction. But the overriding recommendation was, and continues to be, a plan to generate considerably more revenue for transportation.
We entered the 2008 legislative session with such a plan: a special local option sales tax for transportation (T-SPLOST), to be voted on, collected and invested at the regional level. The proposal appeared to be sailing along during last year’s session toward placement on the 2008 general election ballot until the final night of the session. Because of infighting between Lt. Gov. Cagle and Speaker Richardson, the lieutenant governor failed to lead his Republican caucus, and the legislation was defeated.
The T-SPLOST plan was back on the Senate’s agenda at the beginning of this year’s session, and it passed overwhelmingly on Feb. 3. But the House of Representatives went in a different direction, insisting on a statewide sales tax increase to fund a predetermined list of highway projects, including the widening of a rural road that leads to the Reynolds Plantation golf resort, owned by a major Republican financial donor.
Senate and House conferees were never able to get close to negotiating a compromise, largely because the process got sidetracked by the insistence of the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker to pass separate legislation increasing their own power over transportation decisions. So for at least another year, Georgians will be no closer to a transportation solution, while Atlanta residents continue to sit in traffic, burning gasoline and productivity, for hours out of each day. And rural residents must endure another year of inadequate roads, further increasing the economic chasm between rural and metro regions of Georgia.
To make matters worse, the House failed to act on legislation I introduced and passed in the Senate that would have allowed MARTA to avoid drastic cutbacks in service without costing the state a dime. SB 120 simply would have relieved MARTA of the requirement to use 50 percent of its sales tax revenue on capital expenditures, authorizing the transit system to use more of the funds it has already collected to make up its operating deficit.
Incredibly, Gov. Perdue blamed MARTA for not bringing the severe need to pass SB 120 to his attention. Does the governor expect us to believe he was not aware of MARTA’s financial problems? Is he insulting our intelligence or that far out of touch? The situation was so dire that MARTA officials have said they might have to shut down one day a week. That’s the day we would see how much worse the legislature made Atlanta’s traffic situation this year
Thankfully, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) stepped up to the plate and took an unprecedented step of authorizing a reallocation of their own stimulus dollars help MARTA meet their immediate needs. But the words of Tad Leithead, senior vice president of Cousins Properties, who serves on ARC, should serve as a warning to us in the legislature “MARTA affects 500,000 people in this [Atlanta] region every day. There are no road projects in our plan in which we could invest $25 million and impact so many people. We just hope the legislature understands that no one will be here to bail them out if they don’t fix MARTA’s funding situation next year.”
From all reports, the state’s business community is understandably livid. Transportation was their No. 1 issue throughout the 2009 legislative session. The supposedly “pro-business” Republican majority delivered all talk and no action for the second year in a row. Georgia’s business leaders are not buying the GOP’s half-hearted excuses that the sales tax referendum could not be voted on until 2010 anyway, so we still have next year’s session to pass the legislation.
The business leaders know that it will take a major effort for the referendum to succeed, and the rest of this year could have been devoted to raising the resources for such a campaign. Trying to raise those funds next year, in the middle of a governor’s race, U.S. Senate race and other statewide elections, will be much more difficult.
What will it take to get our legislative leaders to take the transportation problem seriously and respond as quickly as they do to, say, a rate increase request from Georgia Power? Maybe such leadership requires a new set of leaders.
District 6
P.O. Box 1781
Smyrna, GA 30081
Phone: 770.436.0699
Fax: 770.436.0699
Email: doug.stoner@senate.ga.gov
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