School safety, literacy, and healthcare are among a variety of topics the state legislature will be looking at during the 2025 legislative session.
Those topics were the focus of what Rep. Chris Erwin and Sen. Bo Hatchett said on Jan. 8 during a pre-legislation presentation at the Currahee Club.
The room in the Currahee clubhouse was packed after the meeting had been delayed from earlier in the morning to 4 p.m.
Erwin, in his opening remarks, said that the state is waiting to see what will happen to the federal Department of Education as President-elect Donald Trump takes office this year.
“We would need to talk to the Trump administration and decide exactly how he wants to move that piece, whether it’s to dismantle it completely or what,” Erwin said.
“I will tell you that we are in the position here in the State of Georgia to do some very good things that have never been done in education,” Erwin said.
“We’re ready to work with what the administration decides up there because I think we have got a lot of good pieces in place in our education system here,” Erwin said.
“This could go all the way across some of the revamping that you see occurring from Washington (D.C.) that’s going to happen,” Erwin said.
Erwin said that Gov. Brian Kemp and both federal chambers have been active.
“We have had the luxury of having a very active governor and then two very active chambers that have been working together to position Georgia where we’re at,” Erwin said.
Hatchett said that he believed politics were becoming less partisan and more about supporting the country.
“I think America has gotten to the point now where we want to go back to where we were before in that, just because you’re in different parties doesn’t mean you have to hate each other,” Hatchett said.
Hatchett said 92 percent of the bills that passed in Georgia were passed with bipartisan support.
“We’ll be looking at ways to protect our farm land,” Hatchett said.
Hatchett also said that some families can’t afford child care and suggested tax credits could go toward helping families with children.
The event was led by Stephens County Hospital CEO Van Loskoski who presented questions to the state legislators.
“How do you perceive conversations around liability taking place during the session and what kind of agendas are out there?” Loskoski said.
Hatchett said the cost of living was out of control and that he was “eager” to see how Kemp was going to address it.
Loskoski asked Erwin about school safety after the shooting incident in Apalachee High School.
Erwin said that after the shooting he, as chairman of education, received a lot of calls from around the state.
Erwin said safety, literacy, and great policy, in that order, were set as the state’s priorities and that, that order was going to continue.
“Students cannot learn if they’re sitting there thinking they’re going to be harmed or killed,” Erwin said.
He said systems from around the state were asked how to best provide safety.
“We’ve got to get to the root of the cause,” Erwin said.
And that root, he said, was mental health.
“Our schools are not equipped to deal with some of the mental health issues that we’re having today at a younger age with children,” Erwin said.
He said schools needed support to deal with mental health.
“We need some type of infrastructure within a school that can help these young children in crisis,” Erwin said.
Erwin said treatments are available to deal with mental health issues such as depression.
He said that information needed to be shared and communicated between law enforcement and school systems about students as needed.
“Most kids that pick up a gun and shoot somebody shoot themselves,” Erwin said.
Social media also played a role, Erwin said.
“What is proper usage of the social media and the technology that we have today?” Erwin said.
He said that threat assessments needed to be defined and identified at schools.
Loskoski asked Hatchett about what the state was going to discuss about healthcare.
Hatchett said that rural healthcare was getting better.
He added he has worked to get a pilot program to supply ambulances on call in different zones for support due to the limited availability of ambulances.
He said that backlogs at healthcare facilities caused some ambulances to be out of service as they waited for a spot for the patient they were transporting.
“We pased a bill that would allow an ambulance to be used without an EMS person on so that a nurse could actually in a non-emergency transfer—basically facility to facility transport—a nurse could ride with them and that has apparently help a little bit,” Hatchett said.
Erwin said Kemp is looking toward addressing costs for small and large businesses.
Erwin also said the House of Representatives would be talking about topics such as Certificates of Need, gambling, and girls sports.
“We’re going to talk about protecting girls sports,” Erwin said.
Erwin said he had voted against gambling every time it had been presented.
Hatchett said he wanted to look at helping small businesses such as pharmacies compete with large companies.
Hatchett also said about one-third of Georgia’s third graders are reading at or above grade level.
“I would like to see us invest more into communities educating parents, having workshops on weekends, anything that we can do to help,” Hatchett said. “I think it starts at home.”
Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce Julie Payson thanked everyone who attended the pre-legislative gathering.
“It was an incredible turnout of over 70 in attendance,” Payson said.
Payson said thanked Hatchett and Erwin for taking time to visit the community and answering questions in addition to sharing their insights for the 2025 session.
“You leadership and dedication to our community are truly appreciated,” Payson said.
“A special thanks to the Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce for hosting the event each year, the Presenting Sponsor, Phillips Group for making this event possible, to Currahee Club for the warm welcome, and to Van Loskoski — who led the conversation as emcee and also serves on the Chamber Board of Directors,” Payson said.