Georgia CommonsHB 1253: Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority; establish
Last action February 11, 2026 · House Second Readers
House Bill 1253 would create a new state authority to give Georgia charter schools access to low-cost loans and state-backed bonds for building and renovating school facilities, something charter schools currently cannot easily get.
The summaries below were written by an AI model (claude-sonnet-5) from the text of the bill and are not part of it. Quote the text, not the summary. The stored text is the Introduced version, the latest LegiScan holds.
In plain language
Georgia charter schools, unlike traditional public school districts, generally cannot use local property tax revenue or issue general obligation bonds to build or fix their buildings. This bill sets up the Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority, a new public corporation housed administratively in the Department of Education, to help close that gap. The authority would be run by a 15-member board mixing state officials and gubernatorial, Senate, and House appointees. It could make loans to qualified charter school organizations for construction, renovation, and rehabilitation of educational facilities, run a revolving loan fund, lease authority-owned property to charter schools, and issue rules for how the program works. The bill also amends the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission Act so that the state can issue general obligation bonds specifically to fund charter school educational facilities, something previously limited mainly to county and independent school systems.
What the bill does
- Creates the Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority, a 15-member public body assigned to the Department of Education, to help charter schools finance building projects.
- Lets the new authority make loans to qualified charter school organizations, capped at the lesser of 20 percent of a project's total cost or $2 million, or $200,000 for renovation and modernization projects.
- Limits loan terms to whichever is earlier: five years or the expiration of the charter school's current charter agreement with the State Board of Education.
- Allows the authority to lease its own or state-owned facilities to charter schools and to create nonprofit subsidiary corporations to carry out its work.
- Expands the definition of 'general obligation debt' in the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission Act so the state can issue general obligation bonds to build charter school educational facilities.
- States that debts of the authority do not count as debts of the State of Georgia and are not backed by the state's full faith and credit.
Who it affects
Charter schools and the nonprofit organizations that operate them, the State Board of Education, the State Charter Schools Commission, the Department of Education, the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission, and the Governor, Senate, and House officials who appoint board members to the new authority.
Why it matters
Charter schools often struggle to finance facility construction or repairs because they lack local taxing power. This bill would give them a dedicated source of state-backed loans and bond financing, which could speed up building projects but also creates a new state body with borrowing and lending authority to oversee.
Key provisions
- New Code Section 20-2-2095.21 creates the 15-member Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority, mixing ex officio state officials with gubernatorial and legislative appointees serving staggered four-year terms.
- New Code Section 20-2-2095.22 gives the authority broad powers including making loans, leasing property, issuing rules, and creating nonprofit subsidiaries, but explicitly denies it the power of eminent domain.
- New Code Section 20-2-2095.23 caps project loans at the lesser of 20 percent of total project cost or $2 million, and renovation/modernization loans at $200,000, with loan terms limited to five years or the charter's expiration, whichever comes first.
- New Code Section 20-2-2095.27 states that authority debts are not obligations of the State of Georgia and do not pledge the state's full faith and credit.
- New Code Section 20-2-2095.31 requires the state treasurer to withhold state funds from a charter organization that fails to repay amounts owed to the authority, unless doing so would violate existing contracts or federal law.
- Section 2 amends the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission Act (O.C.G.A. § 50-17-21) to add charter schools to the definition of projects eligible for state general obligation debt.
- Section 4 revises O.C.G.A. § 50-17-24 to allow general obligation debt to be incurred specifically to provide educational facilities for charter schools.
From the bill
“There is created a body corporate and politic to be known as the Georgia Charter School Facilities Authority which shall be deemed an instrumentality of the state and a public corporation”
“No obligations of and no indebtedness incurred by the authority shall constitute an indebtedness or obligation or a pledge of the faith and credit of the State of Georgia”
“A project, up to a maximum of the lesser of 20 percent of the project total or $2 million”
Status timeline
- House Second Readers (House)
- House First Readers (House)
- House Hopper (House)
Sponsors
- Kasey Carpenter (R, HD-004)
- Jan Jones (R, HD-047)
- Robert Dickey (R, HD-134)
- Noel Williams (R, HD-148)
- Scott Hilton (R, HD-048)
- Bethany Ballard (R, HD-147)
Topics
- charter schools
- school facilities financing
- education funding
- public bonds
- school construction