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Tough 2011 ahead
Legislators foresee woes with budget
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District 23 state Rep. Mark Hamilton discusses the upcoming 2011 General Assembly during the pre-legislative breakfast Tuesday at West Forsyth High School. - photo by Jennifer Sami
Local lawmakers on Wednesday covered a variety of issues they likely will face during the upcoming state legislative session, with the common theme that 2011 is going to be a tough year. Business leaders and students at West Forsyth High School heard from their elected officials during the Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce’s annual pre-legislative breakfast.District 23 state Rep. Mark Hamilton, District 24 state Rep.-elect Mike Dudgeon, both Republicans from Cumming, and District 51 state Sen.-elect Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, attended the event at the school.As the only returning legislator present, Hamilton took the lead on current state topics, which ranged from the budget and water to transportation and taxes.“Even with the rise in the tax revenue that we’re experiencing right now, we’re still going to see somewhere between ... $1 billion and $1.5 billion of a budget shortfall this next year,” he said. “So when we took on the budget challenges last year ... we all were anxiously dreading the budget for the 2012 year.”Cutting more money from an already tight budget is going to be difficult, Hamilton said.
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