With the opening of the 2010 session of the Georgia General Assembly just days away, state Sen. Johnny Grant, R-Milledgeville, is wondering about the legislative body's enthusiasm going into the second half of this biennial session.

The question is who is looking forward to the 2010 session?

"No one I've talked to; and that's different from how it usually is before the session," he said. "Usually there is an eagerness to get back to Atlanta and address the issues that are important to individual legislators and that benefit their communities."

But 13 straight months of declining revenue collections — December revenue figures reported Friday by Governor Sonny Perdue show a 5.8 percent decline from the same month last year and a 13.7 percent decline year-to-date from Fiscal Year 2009 — have legislators preparing for 40 days of dodging budgetary bullets and scraping for every penny to take back to their constituents.

"The budget is going to be 99.99 percent of everything we talk about," reshman state Representative Rusty Kidd told The Union-Recorder Friday. "Additional money in the budget would be good, or even if [revenues] were the same as last year, but some people are predicting that the next year is going to be even worse than last year."

And Kidd said that problems with the state's mental health, prison and transportation systems are not going to be remedied on good intentions alone.

"I'm hearing that in his State of the State address, the governor is going to announce that there are only funds to increase the budget in one area of state government," he said. "And that one area is going to be mental health, but unfortunately it won't benefit Baldwin County. It will probably go to Augusta and Savannah because they are not under the same scrutiny the federal government is placing on Central State Hospital."

But despite the feeling that Milledgeville's state institutions and workforce are being eyed as low-hanging fruit in a session that will be more about budget cutting than anything else, both Kidd and Grant are surprisingly optimistic about how the community and its state jobs will fare in the long run.

In interviews conducted Thursday and Friday, both Grant and Kidd said Baldwin County has a strong possibility of landing the bid for a new 1,000-bed private prison slated for construction in 2011.

"The Department of Corrections desired to build a new private prison in Baldwin County (when the Request for Proposals was initially proposed) because it knew that Scott and Rivers state prisons were on the non-enduring list," Grant said. "The department wants to replace those state-operated beds with private prisons. I believe Baldwin County has a very good chance to [be the location for this private prison]."

Kidd also hopes something can be done with the Bill Ireland Youth Development Campus. Whether it is reopened with a smaller population or contracted out to the private sector, Kidd said those buildings — and buildings on the Central State Hospital campus — could still be utilized to support the many missions under the umbrella of state government.

One issue the entire State of Georgia is looking for forward momentum in is finding an avenue for raising additional funding to get the state's transportation system back on track.

Kidd and Grant differ in their thinking on this issue. Grant is hopeful that the House and Senate can come to consensus on some mechanism for raising additional money to be spent on Georgia's roads.

"The Legislature has gotten criticized severely in the last two years for failing to add additional transportation funding," he said. "In a general sense there is hope and a desire among legislators to find a solution. And there are different parameters that may prove helpful to finding that solution.

"There is a new commissioner of the Department of Transportation, Vance Smith [R-Pine Mountain], a former state representative who was well liked by members of both the House and Senate. There is a lieutenant governor [Casey Cagle, R- Gainesville] who is retaining his chair and not running for governor. And there is a new speaker of the House [David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge].

"These new circumstances help make the possibility of a compromise greater. Leadership in both the House and Senate are working to find a compromise, and I believe we'll be able to get closer to a compromise both bodies can agree on."

But Kidd said it's unrealistic to think that legislators will be able to come to an agreement on a mechanism for raising taxes to support transportation projects when they are unwilling to raise taxes to support the general operating fund.

Kidd said Department of Transportation should look to creative opportunities for raising funds like auctioning off the houses sitting on land the department acquires when it is buying up right-of-way to build new roads. He said the state may not be able to make much money off each auction, but multiplied by the number of houses that go through the department's hands each year, some meaningful returns can be garnered.

"Again, people need to think outside the box in raising funds," he said. "We can't just pass the buck [for funding road improvements] to property owners (through ad valorem taxes)."

Kidd's thinking is outside the General Assembly box in other ways, too. He is one of the few legislators advocating for additional taxes in the face of this unprecedented economic turmoil.

Kidd proposes temporarily increasing the sales tax 2 percent until the economy returns to normal. He said he wants to propose a bill that would increase the sales tax and include an automatic repeal of the increase once state revenue collections are back in black. The state would benefit by capturing tax revenues from tourists visiting Georgia from other states, he said.

Grant said he thinks that transportation funding is the only place additional taxes can be raised this year.

"The general mood in the House and Senate is that it is counter productive to have a tax increase in bad economic times," he said. "If we raise the sales tax, it's feared that people will be less apt to spend money."

But Kidd argues that uncommon measures are required for uncommon times, and legislators need to act courageously in making the decisions that will benefit Georgia in the long run.

"I have no problem in making hard decisions and casting those tough votes," he said. "A lot of times, the foremost thing in legislators' minds is getting re-elected and that dictates how they make their vote.

"The time has come for legislators to stop looking at issues from the perspective of what's going to keep them in office. If they ran for office to represent the people then they need to put their best efforts toward representing the people, not making decisions based on what they think will get them re-elected.

"The time has come for me and [the rest of the Legislature] to cast those hard votes that are best for the people, best for our communities and best for the entire State of Georgia."

The Georgia General Assembly will begin in Atlanta on Monday.