MARIETTA - Expect more budget cuts during the upcoming legislative session, but don't expect a tax increase, Republican Cobb lawmakers say.

State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-North Cobb), Sen. John Wiles (R-Kennesaw), chairman of the Cobb Legislative Delegation, and state Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) met with Journal editors and reporters Friday to share their thoughts about the upcoming session.

Ehrhart expects $1.5 billon in cuts from the FY2010 budget, which means the General Assembly is in for some hard choices.

Yet, "I'm not going to have a great deal of heartburn with continuing to limit government. People all over the country are tightening their belts and government doesn't have to be any different," he said.

Rogers said the cuts will force the state to do what it already should be doing, which is finding a way to operate government at a more efficient, lower cost.

The lawmakers were focused on education, as that is the state's largest spending item, Rogers said.

"We need to look at the whole area of education and see if there is a better way to educate students at a lower cost," Rogers said.

He said Georgia has a long history of being "at the bottom of the barrel" when it comes to standardized test scores. But Georgia has the opportunity to be a leader in online education.

"There's enormous efficiencies in savings there through online learning," he said.

Rogers wants to see every high school student in Georgia taking at least one online course before graduation.

When the Republicans took over the majority in 2003, the FY 2004 budget earmarked $5.8 billion for education. It's now $8 billion, he said.

"I hear people say, 'well, you've cut education spending. I don't know how you go from $5.8 (billion) to over $8 billion and that's a cut. That's not the math I was taught," Rogers said.

More importantly, look at the percentage of the state's budget that goes to education, he said.

"When we started, it was about 50 percent. Now it's up to 58 percent. That's four times greater than the next closest spending item, which I believe is health care. So when you see us spending four times more as we do on education than we do on health care I don't think anyone's questioning whether that's our top priority, it clearly is," he said.

One way to avoid cuts is to raise taxes, which is what Cobb school board member Holli Cash and Alan Essig of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute have argued for. But that's not going to happen if Rogers, Wiles and Ehrhart have anything to do with it.

"If she wishes to raise taxes, she can go out and convince her voters that the idea of raising taxes in the deepest recession since the Great Depression is the right thing to do. The people I represent completely reject that," Rogers said.

The three legislators dismiss Essig's group as nothing more than a liberal think tank of the "the far, far left."

"If you want to do something really bad for education, go out and pass a tax increase," Ehrhart said.

At last year's annual Cobb Legislative Delegation meeting, Wiles said Cobb County School District officials blamed the state for cutting their budget. Wiles said he asked Cash how much was cut, but she didn't know.

"This is the same question I've asked for five years in a row. I've asked this question because I know what the answer is - they always get more money, but they always say we've cut their funding," Wiles said.

A school district finance staffer returned to the meeting hours later to acknowledge that the district received more funding from the state over the previous year, Wiles said.

"Here's what bothered me more than anything else. You are a school board member. How come you don't know the budget?" Wiles said.

The state sent the Cobb school district $12.9 million in stimulus funds in September, Wiles said.

"They sure haven't done a press release about that. In May, the state of Georgia sent them $9.7 million additional dollars. I certainly didn't hear Holli say 'thank you,'" Wiles said.

Ehrhart said he'd like to see larger school systems like Cobb use their reserves to get through the down economy, like the state has. Wiles said the Cobb school district has more in its reserves than the state of Georgia.

All three say when it comes to education funding, teachers are the last to be cut. Ehrhart said cuts could be looked at in regional education service agencies and the state Department of Education.

Rogers said the solution is to grow the economy so Georgia teachers continue to be the highest paid in the Southeast - $71,000 per year on average, Wiles said.

If that means giving tax breaks to such companies as Lockheed and Delta to keep them from leaving or laying off workers, that should be viewed as a positive rather than a negative, Rogers said.

Transportation

During the last two legislative sessions, an effort to approve a funding mechanism for traffic relief has failed, with the House advocating for a statewide transportation sales tax and the Senate arguing for a regional sales tax approach to be put before the voters.

Ehrhart said the state has a plethora of transportation agencies that should be consolidated.

The three lawmakers remain hopeful the third time is the charm for the some kind of transportation funding mechanism.

"We're very aware about the problems we have in Cobb County. We all know about the traffic issues, and we're going to work toward getting this done. There's a commitment on both sides and you will see it happen," Wiles said.

Speaker of the House Richardson

This month, news broke that House Speaker Glenn Richardson attempted suicide.

"Glenn is my very good friend and he's doing fine. I talk to him every day. It could happen to anybody in our community. Depression is a very serious issue and I know my friend, and he's gotten through this," Ehrhart said

The Brunswick News has already called for Richardson's resignation. Ehrhart said it is wrong to use Richardson's medical condition as a way to oust him from office.

Wiles said Richardson had "done a lot of good things in Georgia," and he has his full support.