Georgia boosts its spending for struggling rural areas

Legislative leaders are pouring more than $40 million into new or expanded programs aimed specifically at helping the economy of small-town Georgia. Fixing some of the economic ills that plague rural Georgia was always going to be a major theme of the 2018 General Assembly session after both chambers committed to dozens of hearings across the state last year to find out what they could do. The efforts are focused on counties losing population and jobs to cities, leaving behind areas with few prospects for economic growth. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 124 of them had less than 5 percent population growth for five straight years. Both chambers have also backed funding for a Rural Center for Health Care Innovation and Sustainability and for a Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovations, likely to be housed at one of the state’s universities in South Georgia.In the budget for the upcoming year, which begins July 1, the House added money to increase payments to hospitals handling triage cases — with rural hospitals getting a bigger supplement than urban ones — and to have a residency recruitment fair in hopes of attracting more doctors to small-town Georgia.