Buoyed largely by a status change in Georgia’s longrunning interstate water dispute, the state government’s bill for private attorneys dropped a whopping 12.6 percent in the past fiscal year.

The state spent $44,997,972 on special assistant attorneys general, also known as SAAGs, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2018, according to recently released state Law Department figures. That figure is down from the $51,472,735 spent in the prior fiscal year and the $50,351,809 in the fiscal year before that.