Scott Hilton and Ruwa Romman on Current Legislation and Issues of Today

Join the conversation as representatives Scott Hilton and Ruwa Romman discuss the latest legislative decisions impacting the lives of Georgians. From a $1 billion tax rebate to an increase in teacher pay, they dissect the financial bills shaping the state’s future. But the conversation doesn’t stop there. They also dive into the issues facing the education system in Georgia, reducing standardized testing and the state’s high turnover rate for state offices. With thoughtful and bipartisan discussions that extend to sensitive issues like gender-affirming medical treatment, the Peachtree Corners Life podcast provides an insightful window into the state’s political landscape.

Resources:

Scott Hilton’s Website: https://www.scotthiltonga.com/

Ruwa Romman’s Website: https://www.ruwa4georgia.com/

One of the cool things we did this year in the budget was we passed yet another $2,000 increase for our teachers. We are in a war for talent right now, just like every other industry. And Georgia now after the last four years, I think we’ve increased teacher pay by about $7,000. So we are now one of the highest states in the Southeast in terms of teacher pay. So really kind of putting our foot forward to say teachers are important and they need to be paid that way.

scott hilton

Timestamp (where in the podcast to find it):

[0:00:00] – Intro
[0:01:58] – About the Representatives
[0:04:52] – Passing a Balanced Budget
[0:09:32] – Consumer Protection
[0:19:37] – Education Issues
[0:34:59] – Gender Dysphoria Treatments
[0:42:59] – Scott Hilton Shares His Views
[0:46:29] – Closing

Podcast transcript:

[0:00:00] Rico Figliolini: Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the great city of Peachtree Corners, largest city in Gwinnett County. So we have some two great guests. This is going to be a sort of legislative session, politics, a little bit of recap of what’s going on in the State House. Let me just quickly introduce Ruwa Romman on the left. Hey, Ruwa. Good morning. Thanks for coming. Ruwa is a Fresh State House rep. She represents District 97, which includes Berkeley Lake, Duluth, Norcross and Peachtree Corners. Life here in Gwinnett County. She’s the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia State House, which is interesting as well. I come from New York, so being in the south is a little different. It’s good to see firsts on things like that. I also want to introduce also Scott Hilton that everyone, people know. Hey Scott. Good morning.

[0:00:49] Scott Hilton: Hey, Rico, how are you doing? Good morning.

[0:00:51] Rico Figliolini: Good. Yes. We had some issues, technical issues before, but we’re good now, though. Scott’s, a State House Rep. District 48. Actually. This is his second rodeo, if you will. He was State House rep once before and had some break between and is back again. He represents now a little different than the district before, which is Pastry Corners, Johns Creek, Alpharetta and Roswell. So, welcome. Before we get into discussions and all, I just want to introduce our sponsor, corporate sponsor, supporting our journalism, our podcasts, and the magazines that we produce. And that’s EV Remodeling, Inc. And the owner is Eli. And Eli lives here in pastry corners. Great company. They do design, build whole house renovation and such. So check them out and you can go to Evremodelinginc.com to get more information about them now that we’ve cleared that. And technically, I think everything’s going good. So let’s do this rehearsal again, and we’ll have Ruwa introduce herself this time. Well, like we did last time, I guess. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Ruwa, and how’s your first session, by the way? Your impression of it as well.

[0:01:58] Ruwa Romman: Hi, everyone. My name is Ruwa and I represent House District 97, which includes parts of fishery Corners, all of Berkeley Lake, parts of Duluth, and parts of Norcross. And I am a freshman state representative. I got elected last year, and this was my first ever session, and it was an incredible experience. I think, as I’ve told people as a freshman, it always feels like you’re drinking from a fire hose. And I was incredibly thankful that there were other freshmen that had come in with me. Almost 30% of the chamber this year were new members. We also had new leadership, which meant that everybody was kind of learning along the way. And even, for example, when we didn’t have offices, we kind of all navigated the area together, and we worked really well together, and it gave us an opportunity to build some really good relationships for the session.

[0:02:43] Rico Figliolini: Cool. Yeah. That first session of being a freshman could be a horror story sometimes, I guess, but I’m glad that you all are doing well and had time to spend with each other life. That scott, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you’ve been doing lately, and how that first session went to you.

[0:03:00] Scott Hilton: Yeah. Rico, good morning. Great to see you. Thank you for hosting us. I know when you and I talked about doing this, I thought it was so important that both Ruwa and I do this together. Our districts are divided essentially by 141. Got the forum side she’s got the bush road side but together, we jointly represent these street corners. And I consider Ruwa’s a good friend of mine, even though we’re on opposite political sides. What’s neat about working at the State House is that we do create those friendships and we do work closely together. You hear about DC. Politics all the time. I think it’s very different down at the Georgia State House. We do have our differences, but it’s awesome to see us work together. As you mentioned, I’ve lived in Petrie Corners 13 years now we live over in Amberfield and raising three kids here. Wife is a small business owner right across the street from Wesleyan. And we love live, working, and playing in Peachtree Corners.

[0:03:55] Rico Figliolini: Yeah. And I appreciate when you first contacted me a couple of weeks ago about bringing on Ruwa as well. So I appreciate you putting that out there. That’s very good. I don’t see that too often in politics, bringing on an opposing party with you to talk about what’s going on in session. So this is great to have two political point of views, I guess, but let’s get right into it. There’s a few things, and this started really with that legislative recap that you sent out that I ended up posting online. I’d like to invite Ruwa to be able to do the same thing for me. By the way, just to let you know. I’d like to be able to share your point of view as well within the week or two. So I’ll get back in touch with you on that. But, Scott, tell me, out of the half a dozen legislative more than that, probably legislation that you’ve highlighted in your newsletter, which one do you want to start with? What’s most important to you at this point?

[0:04:52] Scott Hilton: Yeah, what’s most important is really the only constitutional responsibility we have is passing a budget and passing a balanced budget. So we could go down there, do that, and adjourn and get on out of there. But that’s one of the biggest responsibilities that we have. And if you’re a taxpayer in Georgia, specifically Gwynette this year, this is a very good year for you. In particular, three things. Number one, we passed another $1 billion tax rebate for Georgia taxpayers, upwards of $500 for joint filers that you’ll see coming back into your pocket. Number two, we did another billion dollar property tax relief grant. So a lot of us that are watching this podcast here are property owners. And we’ve seen property taxes skyrocket over the last couple of years. And so giving much needed relief there. And then finally, third, worked very hard to introduce and pass a Gwynette property tax rebate. So that not a rebate, but we’re going to be able to vote in 2024 to double our current homestead exemption. So providing Gwynette taxpayers more tax relief here in the state.

[0:06:02] Rico Figliolini: Cool. Wow. Awesome. Yes, I noticed my property tax bill, when they assess it, and you know how that works, right? You get the value of the house, the assessment is much lower or well, supposed to be lower. They’ve raised it right. So I guess that’s life almost like a tax increase without voting for a tax increase when they do that, right.

[0:06:22] Scott Hilton: See what’s been happening. So this is the first time we’ve cut it in this major way since 1988. So we’re doubling the homestead exemption, assuming that the voters pass this, and we also provide another $2,000 homestead exemption for teachers, first responders, and active duty military. So really trying to attract the best and brightest to Gwinnett County with really trying to keep the American dream alive. We hear how it’s so hard to buy a house these days and a lot of that property taxes are so expensive at the same time.

[0:06:52] Rico Figliolini: Yeah, for sure. I think there’s only just saw a friend of mine that just bought a house in Peachtree Corners Life a year ago, and there were only two houses for sale in Peace Corners at the time, and I don’t think it’s that much different now, actually. So, Ruwa, what about you? I know you’re a freshman, but what legislation are you out there with?

[0:07:13] Ruwa Romman: I actually was going to say we always start out with a budget because that’s the biggest thing that we pass. And we actually technically two budgets. There’s an amended budget that we passed for the previous fiscal year and then the one for this upcoming fiscal year. What was really unique about the process this year is we had a $6 billion surplus. So we had an opportunity to really backfill some of the things that we’ve had to cut over the past ten years, which was great because we got to see some things like funding for various grants for nonprofits. We got to see funding for breakfast and lunches, particularly for kids who live in poverty because a child that’s hungry is not going to be able to learn. One of the things I was really sad about, and I don’t understand why and this wasn’t our chamber, this was the other chamber was we cut $66 million from the university system this year. So that’s what I want to learn a little bit more about is what went into that decision. Why did it happen? Because that tends to impact smaller colleges and universities a lot more than the bigger ones. And so this year, being able to see that budget process from the inside rather than somebody could advocate for a specific big piece of it was really great. And so it’ll be interesting to watch how some of that plays out. The other thing that I thought was very important was to finally give our state employees right now, our turnover rate for state offices is insane. It’s like anywhere from 30% to 40% turnover rate. And unfortunately, that’s really hindered a lot of our programs. And I was actually really happy to support the governor’s priority in making sure that we the resources that they pay for through their taxes.

[0:08:51] Rico Figliolini: Yeah, the process could be interesting. Right from the inside, you see competing interests. It’s not like someone lobbying for something, a nonprofit lobbying for a budget and not knowing what the competing aspects are on the other side of that. Because you can’t pay for everything, even with the $6 billion surplus. Because I could see paying one time capital expenses and stuff, but then putting it into a budget where it’s going to come back around again in operating budget like the next year, will you have that surplus still or will you have to cut it then? So, yeah, interesting. Scott, aside from the budget, where are you on some other issues?

[0:09:32] Scott Hilton: So I had a great session. It was fun being back the second time because you were a little bit dangerous. You actually knew what you were doing. And so I managed to pass three bills, introduced nine total, sponsored a number of bills, but yeah, managed to pass three House bills that I directly authored, and then three Senate bills that I sponsored. The one that I was kind of most passionate about this time around that did end up passing was involved with financial fraud. So we’ve all gotten the email, right, hey, I’m a Nigerian prince from wherever, and then all of a sudden your money is gone. Prior to House Bill 219, which I authored, we would have to refer that case, that criminal case, to wherever the criminal is, wherever the assets are that he stole. Now we can prosecute that case here in Georgia, delivering much needed justice for the victims of financial crimes. I’m in the banking industry, so it’s all too prevalent. We see it all the time now. So giving victims the tools they need to get justice here in the state was big. So, yeah, excited about Housebook.

[0:10:39] Rico Figliolini: It’s interesting. The Nigerian example is an extreme example, but I’ve seen phishing emails that just look like real emails from companies that used to be how did they even send that out? Even I can make a better looking email, like, closer look into the real thing than I was getting. But now it’s just unbelievable. You really have to be careful where it’s coming from. And those things can be hidden even in the email. So you might think you see the right address, like Apple, but the hyperlink inside it could be different. So it’s just like a mess out there just giving out your password and payments.

[0:11:20] Scott Hilton: Fortunately, it’s our seniors and elder community that typically lead as primary target or victims. And so to provide them with these protections, I think was so important.

[0:11:28] Rico Figliolini: Oh, cool. Yes. Because I could see that happening. So that would work even on things like where I get an email, I get an email, I get a text message. Looks like it’s from Amazon, says, you’ve been charged for this. You may want to check the link and double check it. And most people will probably click that link, which is not what you should do. Right. So will that legislation also cover those types of things as well?

[0:11:52] Scott Hilton: It will, yeah. So previously what would happen is we would investigate, or police would investigate, find out who that person was. Unfortunately, they would live in California or New York or wherever. We’d have to refer that case to the local jurisdiction. The locals would get it and kind of file it away and nothing would happen. Now we can actually begin to prosecute that person here in Georgia, so we actually see some justice going toward them. So cool. That was exciting. Also, bills that I serve as vice chair of the Education Committee, and we did a lot of work, the Education Committee, this year, two bills in particular to highlight the early literacy bill, moving us back to kind of the science of reading. Mississippi passed the same bill, and they’ve seen dramatic improvements in their reading levels. And so that’s something here in Georgia we’ve got to get back on track with. Kids have got to be on a reading level by third grade here in Georgia. So that and then the Safe Schools Act was important. Included in the budget, another line item we had was for school safety grants, each school getting upwards of about $50,000 per school in our state to keep our schools safe. And so that’s something from an education standpoint, we want good policy, safe schools, and good reading, good literacy in our state. So priorities for all the education committee.

[0:13:12] Rico Figliolini: Cool. Ruwa, I saw you nodding a lot there as far as the Early Dorsey Act.

[0:13:18] Ruwa Romman: Yeah. So on the consumer protection piece of it, there was a great bill that came through along those same lines called SB 73, which is meant finally crack down on Telemarketers. But what this bill does, a lot of these companies will outsource their calling. They’ll have a different company either here in the United States or overseas, do a lot of their marketing, and it’s become very spammy. I mean, we would be hearing this bill during committee hearing, and at least three or four of us would get a spam call in the process of hearing. And so we finally installed last year, but they’ll finally pass this year, that fine company close that loophole to say you’re also responsible for whoever you contract work out to and we’re hoping that we’ll mitigate some of those calls. So it’s exciting to kind of see when things complementary happen that way, where it’s a protection piece and we’re also even looking at the process. And same thing on the literacy bill. I was stoked to see that on the list of things we’re going to talk about today because I always tell people when I learned English here in the US. You start out by looking at pictures and then you kind of piece the pictures to the word. And if you’re dyslexic, you don’t catch that until you pictures away at that point, citizens, third grade, fourth grade, wherever it might be, and they’ve lost out on years of education where somebody could sat down and said, here, let me help you. And the parents that advocated for that were really awesome and they were really fun to talk to. And I always tell people that’s why it’s important to us, because sometimes we don’t realize either something has or an issue that’s there. Those are really great bills.

[0:15:11] Rico Figliolini: Yeah, a lot of good legislation there. The security grants and stuff as well, I think works out. I guess the schools can depending on the school. I think sometimes social media, really. I mean, there have been a lot of school shootings or at least highlighted more in the past year. Right. And that maybe makes people feel like it’s happening more often and maybe it is, but it’s such a small percentage compared to the schools out there. It’s interesting how you want to protect your kids. I have three kids. It’s not an easy thing. You send them out into the world and you expect that they should come back. Good to see that. What about other legislation that you’ve been looking at?

[0:16:00] Ruwa Romman: Yeah, so another one that I looked at this year that really helped me understand the process, kind of see the importance policy conversations in all of this is House Bill 73. So along the same so it’s in this case a House bill, not a Senate Bill 73. When we talk about consumer protections, one of the growing industries is the solar industry. And what we’re finding is sometimes some of these will try to sell something and unfortunately they don’t give their terms up front. And so somebody might end up scammed. They might have these solar panels that don’t work or they don’t have I said on energy, utility, telecoms, which is why I know so much about this. But one of the bills was a consumer protection bill and unfortunately the third section of that bill was going to stand up a whole new office for these companies to purchase. The problem is we already have that. The Secretary of State’s office. People register their businesses through that. The Attorney General has an entire oversight board. And so one of the conversations we had this year was instead of paying for branding office and having redundant spending and all of that, this should be moved under one of these two agencies. And it was really interesting because you don’t really hear about this sort of like bipartisan conversation that happens. And it did pass the House because we wanted to signal that this was an important bill. But then on the Senate side, we started working through to fix that provision so that hopefully next year we can fully pass the bill. But I always tell them, watch the process. Even if you take one bill each year to watch, you’ll learn a lot from this process. And that was one of them.

[0:17:39] Rico Figliolini: Yeah. I mean, even though the House may pass several bills, it’s really the Senate. Then they have to go back and then write change.

[0:17:47] Scott Hilton: Yeah.

[0:17:48] Rico Figliolini: So it could go the other way. Yeah. Talking about those calls, I use T Mobile. And the interesting part is they have a scam likely thing, so they silence calls as it comes in. Sad part is, if it’s a call I need, it goes to voicemail and never makes it to me unless I put it in the address book contact list, rather. But yeah, so that could be a dozen calls like that.

[0:18:11] Scott Hilton: Rico, I’ll jump in. It’s funny, we have a consumer protection theme to the call here today. One of the neat bills we passed was dealing with online renewal transparency. So House Bill 528 basically said, life, listen, it’s so easy to sign up for an online subscription online, and then they make it so difficult to cancel it, right? Like, think about you have to call in, you have to go through all these and so it’s the transparency act that says, listen, if you make it easy to sign up online, you also got to make it easy to cancel online. So I think that’s going to provide a real breath fresh air for a lot of folks from a consumer perspective.

[0:18:47] Rico Figliolini: You know what, I appreciate you saying that, because that just reminded me of my daughter whose membership I was paying at a gym in Johns Creek because she wanted to go up there. It’s only five minutes from here, right? At some point, she ended up going to school and stuff, and I had to cancel it because she wasn’t around. They forced me to come up there in person to cancel the membership, and I said that’s like crazy. I would never have to do that in any other business. Why are you forcing me? And they said, that’s the only way we do it. And they would no matter what I said, they would not let me cancel it on the phone or online. And I had to go literally in person to cancel it, which is crazy.

[0:19:30] Ruwa Romman: Yeah.

[0:19:30] Scott Hilton: I mean, that’s the kind of deceptive stuff that we’re trying to protect people against. Yeah, it’s a very good bill.

[0:19:37] Rico Figliolini: I like that personally. All right, so we’ve been talking consumer protection and stuff. There’s been a few other and we talked a little bit about education. I noticed that in your email, Scott, you also talked about a couple other things like cold case justice and reopening cases. God knows I think we all anyone that’s on social media to any extent or watch certain news programs see, sometimes these cold cases open and DNA prove that that 20 year conviction was an innocent person or that cases are not solved. And because there’s just more cases right after that, everything’s whatever. If the parents if it’s parents, they have to scream the loudest to be able to get any attention. So tell us a little bit about that and what that means to families.

[0:20:32] Scott Hilton: Yes, we have one that did not go through that we’re still working on. When someone is wrongfully convicted and it’s proven that they were, we actually have a compensation program to compensate them for that time they spent. Right now, it’s a very laborious process for that person to receive compensation from the state. We’re streamlining that process, passed the House, got hung up in the Senate. I think we’ll probably get it through next year. Yeah. Victims of cold cases. That bill allows families to petition to have cases reopen when there’s new evidence, again allowing them to receive justice on cold cases there. You touched on education. I did want to highlight one of the cool things we did this year in the budget was we passed yet another $2,000 increase for our teachers. We are in a war for talent right now, just like every other industry. And Georgia now after the last four years, I think we’ve increased teacher pay by about $7,000. So we are now one of the highest states in the Southeast in terms of teacher pay. So really kind of putting our foot forward to say teachers are important and they need to be paid that way. And so really proud of the work we did there. One of the education bills that did not pass that we found to chat about here on the call, ru and I were on opposite sides of this, dealing with school choice.

[0:21:52] Ruwa Romman: We had away with it. Look, I was going to let you go through this whole you know what.

[0:22:01] Scott Hilton: She was super passionate about the other side. This bill would have allowed parents to keep the state portion of their education spending so equivalent to $6,500. This impacted if you had a child in what’s called a failing school. So we rank all our schools. If you’re at all school here in the state, you would have been able to opt out, take your child to either home school, a micro school, a private school, basically an education savings account. And essentially, I view it as a lifeline. The program only kicks into place if our schools are fully funded or our traditional public schools are fully funded, and the local schools get to keep the local portion of their tax digest while not having to educate the student. So, again, critical lifeline to those that are trapped in failing schools.

[0:22:54] Rico Figliolini: I think that legislation, or at least the way you headlined it, was school choice. The Georgia Promise Scholarship Act. Was that the one? I guess. And interesting because I always felt life there was never enough money for someone to actually go to private school, let’s say to choose. But knowing how the school systems work, actually there’s a lot of scholarship programs in private schools and charter schools. So 6500 actually go a long way in some private or charter schools to.

[0:23:24] Scott Hilton: Pay for you’re not sending a kid to 6500. We live in a big state, though, and what we found was private school on average runs, you about 10,000 short. But yes, you also have programs that many of the schools have kind of help bridge that gap, and even the parents themselves can help bridge that gap. We heard there was one parent who literally knocked doors in her local community to raise money to send her kid to private school. So folks are desperate. They want to get out. They want to have and this is something we worked very hard on, fell just a little bit short. I think we’re going to try to get it through again.

[0:24:04] Rico Figliolini: See, Ruwa jumping here. She wants to get right into the.

[0:24:11] Ruwa Romman: I’ve become the unintended consequences queen of the House floor because I’ll go up and I’ll talk about why a bill is bad, but specifically implementation. We talk a lot. I tell people all the time I had an incredible public experience, particularly in Foresight County public schools. You literally have your pick of programs from culinary school to IV program to tech, and they’re all publicly funded. And I didn’t have to pay a cent growing up to choose between those options. What we’re seeing is the culmination of all public education. And rather than saying, you know what, it’s time to reverse course, we’re saying, let’s just take that money and put it somewhere else. And that’s going to leave a lot of people behind. And there are co provisions within this bill in particular that give me pause. The first is that piece about how we’re only looking at the bottom 25% of schools. No matter what list you make, there’s always going to be a bottom 25%. So even if they meet basic standards, even if these schools do meet the thresholds we’re asking them to, they could still be the last 25%. The other piece to this is, as we mentioned, there is actually a gap for that funding. So even if you covered half of it with this scholarship and then the other half of the scholarship from the school itself, there’s still other factors that would prevent somebody who’s trying to get out of that low income area from going to that school. And that includes things like transportation, which is why a lot of studies have found that unfortunately, private schools are not the answer to some of the woes that we’re seeing in public education. And they’re very real. Don’t get me wrong. They’re very real. And there’s a reason a lot of people voted against this bill across the aisle. It’s because we knew that either our districts didn’t qualify for this, so it meant money going out of our districts for this or that. They didn’t have a private school that qualified within a span of area that was feasible to get to every day for their child. And so I always urge people, I say, things sound good, they might have a good title, a bill might look great on paper. But when you think about the actual implementation, the flow of money, I’m actually worried that this bill is going to take away from students. And the last piece I tell people is, on average, we spend half of that per pupil from the state. And that’s just like pupil to people. I’m not talking about everything else that we spend. I’m talking about the spend per student that we’re talking about here is almost half of that $500.

[0:26:42] Rico Figliolini: You’re talking from the state side versus the county.

[0:26:46] Ruwa Romman: And I think a lot about what that could mean in terms of potentially taking more money up than you’re putting in, and the fact that private schools don’t have the same standards that requirements in terms of entry as public schools, that gets fixed. And I’m hoping we get a fiscal note to figure out how much fully this will cost. So in the meantime, I’m a pretty hard no on that bill.

[0:27:12] Rico Figliolini: Let me ask you something. I know that charter schools is a big thing that people look at too, and there was a movement to stop charter schools, let’s say stop funding them, and charter schools actually become good ones. At least there’s always a bad actor in anything, right? So you always get the bad example in these types of things. But they’re really good charter schools in neighborhoods that could work, in poorer neighborhoods, let’s say, where maybe the school is not performing the way they should be. And the charter school puts it into a different light, a different way. And some people may look at it and say, well, it’s still a school, it’s still same teachers, maybe, but there’s a different mission in the charter school, right? You want to give these children the opportunity. I’ve seen, I’ve done sometimes career days at middle schools, for example, and it’s like unbelievable, the difference in the kids and who’s paying attention and who’s not. And it’s a shame because I could pick out out of class of 30, maybe two or three that are excited about what they’re seeing. And I could see that they’re going to go far, and then you could see the five or six kids that totally just not learning. And it may just not be their fault even. It may just be the way things are taught.

[0:28:30] Scott Hilton: So the beauty of charter schools is they get more flexibility. So they’re publicly funded, so they are public schools, they get more flexibility in how they’re able to operate and teach, but along with that comes more accountability, right? So if a public charter school is failing, they’re closed, whereas a traditional public school, if they’re failing, we give them more money. There’s the beauty in that fight to survive and be excellent in everything they do. And on average, our charter schools far exceed our traditional public schools with less money. They receive less money than traditional public schools. So it’s proven the model, the model works. We have thousands of Georgians on waitlist across the state to join charter schools. We actually have one, I believe they’re still here in Peace Corners, right off Spaulding version. Their students come and they learn Japanese. That’s how they have that flexibility to do that. And they’re doing amazing things, producing great scholars.

[0:29:33] Rico Figliolini: They have over 240 kids, I think, there, and they’re doing a great job. When I first heard about the Japanese immersion school, I was like, really interesting to go that way, but they’re doing phenomenally well.

[0:29:46] Ruwa Romman: We’ve talked about this previously, but I think once before, where honestly, to me personally, I think one of the places that we can absolutely save costs and be able to retain better talent within our school system is to reduce the amount of standardized testing that kids have to take these days. Because the reason kids aren’t able to learn in a flexible, critical thinking type of way is they spend sometimes up to 45% of their time on testing and preparing for testing and doing the testing. And I understand that we need to have metrics, but now it’s becoming redundant metrics. And if we want that flexibility, if we want to be able to bring some of that overhead out and reduce some of those administrative costs that we’re seeing that are ballooning across the board, that’s one way we can do it. And I always urge people, and I say, look, it’s easy to build something new and shiny and it’s easy to tear things down, and it’s a lot harder. There are people making decisions about education that have never set foot in the classroom and have never taught before, and that’s a mental element of education, is that we are teaching students. The basic premise to my stance is, if this takes an opportunity from another child, I can’t in good conscience vote for it, because then I’m just helping perpetuate the spiral downward. Now, that doesn’t have out of whatever school that they are assigned to. This is, can we find a way to help that school rather than building a whole new one with all that money and then bringing in brand new talent? No, we should just bring that talent to the school that’s already existing and bring some of that work in house rather than outsourcing it kind of interesting.

[0:31:40] Rico Figliolini: I think any parent that’s gone to the PTAs and schools and stuff over the years can see. I think if you’re intelligent enough, you don’t necessarily have to be an educator to be able to see when something’s not working. To me we all talk about. I think we all can agree that the formative years are the early years of a child. And I just wish that there was more money spent in that early part and that the classrooms are smaller even. Because once you get past, like my life says, sometimes they pick up from you what they’re doing. And I said, well, they’re past that eight year mark, so they’re not picking up anything more from me at this point. But it’s that example that leadership, not just from the teacher, but from the students themselves. And it takes work, right? It takes work to do that. The standardized testing is a lazy way. It worked at one point, I think, nationally, when we had no testing, when a kid in California applying for a college, with a kid in Georgia applying for a college, there needed to be some sort of standard way. But I agree with you. I think what it comes down to now is money. Who’s getting the multimillion dollar contracts to do these tests? It’s just ridiculous. At some point that the money that’s spent to test on kids, they’re not teaching well enough. The obvious thing is to spend the money there. I agree with that.

[0:33:14] Scott Hilton: One of the things we worked on in education, kind of outside of the school a little bit, I became kind of a de facto swimming guy this year. I had a couple of swimming related bills. One of the leading causes of death of children under the age of 18 is swimming accidents. And so I sponsored two bills, one that both have passed, one that uses our schools to disseminate information out to the community. Hey, here’s local resources where you can get for free swimming lessons. I think about Petrie corners, particularly the YMCA. If you want to go and get a swimming lesson, we offer it, and so a lot of people just don’t know about it. And so schools now, at the beginning of the year, will give out the parents, either a flyer electronically, information on where they can get free swimming lessons near them, and then also pass Izzy’s Law, which deals with private swim instruction. We had a case here in Georgia, private swim instructor was teaching 25 kids. One of them got loose, and you know what kind of happened from there. So it puts definitions around. Okay, when you’re doing private swim, what’s the ratio? Teachers to students and all that to kind of avoid that situation moving forward.

[0:34:24] Rico Figliolini: Yeah. More regulation sometimes is needed. I know people say sometimes we over regulate, but that type of thing you really do. There’s just too many people that just do their own thing irresponsible. We just assume people are responsible when they offer those lessons, but we don’t know. Right. There’s no way to grade them. Like going to a doctor that might have gotten a C at Columbia versus someone that got an A somewhere. We’ll never know that.

[0:34:52] Scott Hilton: It’s one of those industries we just didn’t have any kind of guardrails around. We’re getting close to summer here. That’s one of the important things here.

[0:34:59] Rico Figliolini: I’m glad you brought that up. Thank you, Scott. Ruwa. I know we’re getting a little long here, so I don’t know if I should introduce this subject, but I’m going to anyway. So there’s the gender thing. I say the gender thing because it depends who you talk to and what part of that subject, what part of that topic, whether it’s young kids under 18 I know you were involved with SB 140, I think you mentioned that, which bans gender dysphoria treatments for kids under 18. I have my opinion. I’ll leave it to myself. But I’d like to hear what you would say, Ruwa, about that, what that means.

[0:35:41] Ruwa Romman: Yeah. So, again, going back to unintended consequences, you’ll hear me say this a lot. What we’ve seen is this movement targeting particularly those who identify as trans. And we have a finite amount of time every session. We’ve got 40 days between January to March. There are a lot of bills that end up not passing. And for whatever reason, this has become the topic of the day. And the reason I’m particularly sensitive to it is last year, one of the bills that was passed was to enable the High School Association board, sports association board, to ban students who identify as trans from playing in the sport as their identified gender, instead of the gender that they were assigned at birth. And the reason I’m sensitive to that is, I’m not trans. This is not something that I ever experienced. But that bill was written in the same way that allowed the schools to ban hijab wearing girls from playing sports. So I’ve always been particularly attuned and sensitive to any bills that talk about a minority group when that minority group is not present within those that are making those decisions. And so this was one of those bills. We had a long committee hearing on it, although it had to be truncated because we were running out of time at that point. And I took that as an opportunity to listen, because this is not something that I’m familiar with. And the thing that there was a moment where those who had ever experienced any sort of gender dysphoria as under the age of 18 and had received treatment, whether that’s hormone replacement therapy or surgery after 18 if they regretted their decision. And then they were also asked, is there anybody that falls within that category and does not regret their decision? In the span of the process of this bill moving through, they have not found a single person, especially within the state of Georgia, that regrets receiving that treatment, particularly starting under the age of 18. I was sitting in that committee hearing. We waited for quite a bit of time to allow people to come to committee room to come testify on this. But the people who did not regret their decision were overall present in that room. To me, as a legislature who doesn’t have experience on this issue, that signals to me that I am trying to deal with something that I do not understand. There’s been, frankly, quite a bit of graphic conversation about what this means with gender reassignment surgery for those under 18. And I have to remind them that we do not perform those surgeries in Georgia. Adults are unable to find the treatments that they need because it is so rare in our state. But one of the unintended consequences of this bill, not only does it ban something that doesn’t exist, it bans hormone replacement therapies, which do have long term impacts, but it’s not surgery. And there was a provision within the bill that was struck out that would have prevented essentially a new crime from being created against doctors. That provision that would have had a safeguard within the bill was removed. And there’s a reason there’s unanimous consent within medical professionals opposing this bill. We had one endocrinologist come and testify, saying that she does not recommend formal replacement therapy for those under 18 after doing something. She does not treat people with gender dysphoria. She refers them out. And she has kind of gone on the speaking circuit on this. So for me personally, obviously, I’m not trans. It doesn’t impact me personally. I don’t have siblings who are trans or family members who are trans. But I’m incredibly suspect when people who are not impacted by something create laws about that thing.

[0:39:24] Rico Figliolini: Scott, how do you feel about that?

[0:39:27] Scott Hilton: Great question. We talk a lot about on this call, protecting children and the innocence of childhood. For me, this is a very simple issue. We should not be performing irreversible treatments on prepubescent children. For me, again, it’s pretty black and white. This was one of the easier votes we voted on. I think it’s sad what’s happening to some of these kids. I was on that committee hearing, served on the healthcare committee. We had a mom testify at four years old. Her daughter started exhibiting, and then at seven, I think they started some form of treatments. Again, as a dad of three kids, I can’t imagine what’s being done to some of these kids.

[0:40:17] Ruwa Romman: That’s actually very unfair, because I know that parent, and she and I spoke after because I really wanted more information from her. They did not start treatment at seven years old. What they did was they had the child meet with therapists and psychiatrists and an extensive team of both mental health and physical health professionals to understand if there were any other underlying issues before as they neared puberty, which was twelve to 13 years old, they then began discussing potential treatments. The child is not old enough to even receive hormone blockers, let alone hormone replacement therapy. Her conversation was this bill would prevent the child, if they reach that point, from being able to pursue the next step in their care should they need it. And I think again, this is why I say if you’re able to see something that’s a medical issue in black and white when there are so many degrees of gray, that gives me one of the things I hadn’t even thought about is was brought up during the committee hearing was that sometimes younger women, even under the age of 18, require breast reduction surgery because it creates intense back problems. It literally can create scoliosis, it can be paralyzing, and this bill could potentially impact that. And again, my question is, we have so many things we need to worry about. You’re talking about twelve families in the entire state that this could apply to just past the $32 billion budget. It’s guaranteed that we’re willing to use State Farm.

[0:41:47] Rico Figliolini: That’s what I was going to ask also in that committee meeting, how many people actually are affected by this legislation? In the state of Georgia, you would think there are hundreds of people impacted by this. The same way I think when it comes to gender and sports, how many people in school are actually impacted by that legislation? Yeah, sometimes I think our priorities get a little mixed up. That’s my opinion as far as what should be at the top and stuff, but I get it. Listen, we all have things that we want to discuss. Talk about this 300 plus. How many legislators are they now?

[0:42:25] Ruwa Romman: We’re 176. There’s like four empty.

[0:42:33] Rico Figliolini: 300 number I think is counties, then Georgia or something like that.

[0:42:41] Scott Hilton: 180 in the House, 56 in the Senate. I cover about 60,000 folks. Roughly about 40,000 voter or people registered to vote. Yeah.

[0:42:51] Rico Figliolini: Interesting. We were talking a little before about.

[0:42:53] Ruwa Romman: I need more people voting. Not enough of you. Vote local election, please.

[0:42:59] Rico Figliolini: Yeah, but if you’re going to vote, please look at the issues, read the stuff. Don’t just vote just because you think it’s like, I want educated voters also someone that knows what they’re doing. At least we’re out of time almost here. So what I’d like to do is we can keep going on, but I’m sure that if our listeners have any comments that would be putting it in the comments section once this is streamed out there, and certainly to the tail end of this. So I’m going to ask both of you to give me like one or two minute recap and then how people can reach either one of you. And I’ll make sure those are in the show notes as well. So why don’t you put you guys on and tell me what you need to tell us. Let’s start with Scott this time.

[0:43:47] Scott Hilton: Thank you, Rico, for having us. When I ran for office, you heard me say over and over again, I was laser focused on three things our economy, public safety, and education, and so fulfilled those promises this session. Look forward to continuing to fill those next session. Really focused on keeping our community safe, our schools strong, and doing what we need to from a financial standpoint to help you and your family navigate this economy. I’m going to continue to be effective for you, but most importantly, I’m going to continue to be accessible for you. You can reach me on all the social media platforms, ScottHiltonGA. ScottHiltonGA is where we are on Facebook, twitter, and instagram. If you go to my website, Scotthiltonga.com, you’ll see my cell phone number. And really, it’s not just from a policy perspective. I have folks reach out to me who need help with medicaid, with department of transportation, anything you might need from a state perspective, department of revenue, secretary of state, let me know at the second time. We’re out of session right now, but I have families reach out to me, Scott. I got a break in the summer. I don’t know what to do with the kids. Let me take them down the capital, give them a tour, give them behind the scenes look, all that stuff, I love doing all that stuff. I want to be as engaged as possible for you and our community, and you’ll see me about doing town halls and things like that. But whatever you need over the next nine months until we go back in January, you can find me. I’m out there and would love to help you out. It’s truly an honor to serve you in our community.

[0:45:23] Rico Figliolini: Cool.

[0:45:24] Ruwa Romman: All of that. Although we’re in session January through end of March, it’s actually the best time to set up meetings with us, talk to us about policy issues that you care about, because then we could dig really deep into them and prepare ahead of the next session. I’m actually wrapping up a round of town halls now. We’ll probably be doing them throughout the year as well, so be on the lookout for those. You can find me at Ruwa, the number four, Georgia on all the social media handles. For our website, there’s a form you can submit that will email my phone directly. And my team and I are always here to help in whatever way that you need. I’ve got really hit it on the head is that one of the things that people don’t realize is we can help you on the department level. We can support you if you’re not hearing back from somebody, if you’re not getting what you need, use us. And please come down in the Capitol. Whether it’s during session or outside of session, I’ve loved taking people and telling them about the process and showing them how they can have an impact. Anyone can come and testify before committee. Anyone can be in this. It is called the People’s House for a reason, and I really hope to see you there and around the district.

[0:46:29] Rico Figliolini: Cool. I want to just let people know also that you both have newsletters, so they should certainly sign up for those. This way they can see what’s going on. I know you send them out regularly. That’s why there’s no reason anyone should be ignorant about House bills and such and certainly constituent efforts. Like you both have said. If you need any help with state agencies, these two will be able to help you.

[0:46:55] Scott Hilton: Let me slide this in real quick. I failed to mention my biggest accomplishment this session. The Atlanta Journal had the listing of the best dressed legislators. Truly was named. One of them, Ruwa, was robbed. She should have been on that list. So next year she’s going to be on it. It’s fun being down there representing our community.

[0:47:13] Rico Figliolini: It’s fun. It’s good to have you guys on the podcast too. And I love it when Scott gets red faced. He’s almost like basketball. It’s so it’s great to have you guys on. Thank you again. And Scott, thank you again for suggesting that this would be a great podcast to have the three of us together like this. Everyone, leave your comments in the comment section and reach out to these two. They’ll be more than willing to help. Thank you again and have a great day.

[0:47:48] Ruwa Romman: Thank you.

[0:47:49] Rico Figliolini: Bye.