By Tom Jackson
tjackson@uga.edu
The University System’s top budget priorities were met in the 2001 Georgia General Assembly with the considerable support of Gov. Roy E. Barnes. Both the $60 million pay-raise request and $18 million to cover a credit-hour shortfall resulting from semester conversion were included in the final budget as adopted.
“This is a strong budget year for the University of Georgia,” says President Michael F. Adams. “Many of UGA’s priorities have been met, and relative to our colleagues across the south and nation, we are in a healthy position.”
The salary package provides a 4.5 percent pool which will be distributed to individual faculty and staff based on merit. The pay-raise pool is half again greater than last year’s increase, and surpasses that for higher education personnel in Georgia’s neighboring states.
“This increase should propel us to an even higher position in the SREB region than we had anticipated, because other states are not moving as aggressively in today’s economic climate as we have done with this budget measure,” says Tom Daniel, interim senior vice chancellor for external activities and facilities.
The $18 million “hold harmless” provision for next year follows $24 million for the same purpose in the current fiscal year. The funding is necessary due to a credit-hour decrease relative to full-time enrollment following the conversion from quarters to semesters. At the University of Georgia, head-count enrollment increased 1,279 from fall 1998 to fall 2000, while in the same period equivalent full-time enrollment increased only 508, indicating students are taking lighter course loads on average under semesters than they did under quarters. Faculty committees are studying means to restructure curriculum and encourage or require students to take course loads at or nearer the 15-hour norm per semester to end the shortfall.
Gov. Barnes’s proposed $1 million for the biomedical services network, to be created through a UGA collaboration with the Medical College of Georgia, was increased to $1.15 million by the General Assembly. The board of regents budget provides $1 million in matching funds for a total of $2.15 million in the coming fiscal year.
The legislature also approved the first-year state match of $333,000 for a $6.5 million, five-year federal grant to the UGA College of Education for work in mentoring teachers.
Significant additional maintenance and operation funding for the agricultural experiment stations and the Extension Service was approved at $1.096 million.
The supplemental budget for fiscal year 2001 adopted earlier in the session included $10 million for an animal and human vaccinology research facility to be built here; $3.2 million for technology upgrades in the law school; some $28 million for the Georgia Research Alliance, of which $9.6 million will go to UGA projects, including research clusters in global infectious disease, functional genomics, the New Media Institute, smart-sensor systems in agriculture, and biomanu-facturing; and $4.9 million for expansion of the Rural Development Center in Tifton.
The university will participate in the Georgia Cancer Coalition, funded with $37 million from the tobacco settlement, a statewide collaborative effort involving universities, clinics and hospitals in cancer research.
Of course, not everything on UGA’s list of needs was approved. There were no funds appropriated for graduate student health insurance, but disappointed officials believe the case can be made next year. Likewise, the university will receive neither a requested $3.8 million for construction of a veterinary bioresources facility nor $12.8 million in payback funding for another parking deck.
Several proposed changes in retirement regulations and funding for members of the Teachers Retirement System were put forth and could be acted upon next year, depending on actuarial studies to be conducted in the interim. |
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