As bad as the economic conditions are now, state Sen. Jack Hill believes there are brighter days at the end of the dark tunnel.

Hill, speaking at the Effingham Chamber of Commerce’s annual Eggs and Issues breakfast Thursday morning at Springfield United Methodist Church, noted how often he offers gloomy statistics on the state’s budget woes.

But, thanks to the continued business at the ports and the recent industrial announcements in Coastal Georgia, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee thinks the Coastal Empire will bounce back faster.

“I think the outlook here is better sooner than in other areas,” he said. “The outlook for our state is really very bright. There are lots of positive things going on in Georgia. We’re not a Rust Belt state sliding into oblivion. We’ve just got to turn this corner and get headed back in the right direction. I’m very confident about the future.

“The prospects for Effingham County mirror the prospects for our entire state’s. We’re struggling to get through this time. We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there.”

Hill, about to embark on his 20th year under the Gold Dome, said the state has been “a full participant” in the national recession.

“We’ve been immune in the past,” he said. “The big difference this time has been the home building industry and the construction industry that has really ground to a halt. That has multiplied in spades in metro Atlanta.”

The crushing setbacks to the home building and real estate markets have left a huge mark on the state budget, too, according to Hill.

“Last year, we had a period where we looked like we were going to hold on our own,” he said. “The last six to eight months of the fiscal year we had the most precipitous drop in state revenues that we’ve ever had. We’re basically $4 billion under in state revenues where we were two years ago. We’re struggling compared to last year. We understand now how important the home building industry is in our state and the ripple effect it has.”

State Rep. Jon Burns, whose district covers northern Effingham, Screven, Jenkins and parts of Bulloch and Burke counties, said there are no industries left in Jenkins County, which now has the state’s third highest unemployment rate at 17.5 percent.

“Good times will return,” he said. “Maybe they won’t be as grand as they once were, but they will return and with good leadership, responsible, conservative leadership, we’ll be OK.”

The state House took a 25 percent cut in funding and even lawmakers had furlough money withheld from their checks, Burns said.

“It’s not a huge amount of money,” he said, “but it shows we’re all in this together.”

Hill, Burns and recently re-elected state Rep. Ann Purcell also discussed how the state may address its pending and future transportation needs. There are competing plans on transportation financing at the Capitol, one with a one-cent statewide sales tax and one with a one-cent sales tax to be adopted by counties, either individually or collectively in a group to address road building.

“Because the Atlanta area needs are so dire, it appears to be a real solid move to approve some sort of regional opportunity for counties to band together or individually add a 1-cent sales tax for projects in that county,” Hill said.

But as Hill pointed out, one-fourth of the DOT’s revenues is spent on bond interests.

“There’s a lot of pressure on the Department of Transportation right now,” Hill said.

Hill’s own polling often shows constituents are 2-1 against new taxes. But such funding streams could produce enough revenue to build the planned Effingham Parkway in seven to eight years, he said.

“I believe we will have some sort of transportation enhancement that may or may not be on the ballot,” he said. “I would hope that any tax that has a chance to be placed on you, you have a chance to vote on.”

Also, under the DOT’s restructuring, 20 percent of the funding for transportation will come through the Legislature on a project-by-project basis.

“This is a county that has tremendous transportation needs,” Hill said. “Hopefully, if people are in favor of it, we’ll get a new opportunity to fund projects in Effingham County.”

Burns, a former member of the state transportation board, lauded the formation of the local transportation advisory board that has pushed forward a list of priorities to the state DOT and lawmakers.

“That’s been very, very helpful,” he said. “We have to have our house in order when we go to Atlanta to ask for money.”

Burns also pushed the wider use of public-private initiatives in road building.

“It has a lot of merit,” he said. “I’m certainly willing to look at any alternative. We’re looking at all the tools in the tool box.”

Purcell, whose district spans south Effingham and west Chatham, proposed giving the Effingham Parkway a new name.

“It needs to have a new name such as Port Express, something that ties us together with ports and hopefully, that will give us some leverage in completing that parkway,” she said.

She also said that, even though state funding for transportation appears to be difficult to obtain, that shouldn’t deter anyone from working on possible funding mechanisms.

“We’ve got to be prepared for whatever comes down,” she said.