Columns:: State budget proposal includes pay raises, other UGA priorities

since 12/15/98

Columns::January 28, 2002

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State budget proposal includes pay raises, other UGA priorities

By Tom Jackson
tjackson@uga.edu

Gov. Roy E. Barnes’s budget proposal to the General Assembly contains a 3.5 percent pay-raise pool for University System faculty and staff while addressing a number of the university’s other top priorities.
“While some may think this is not as strong as previous budgets, in the context of the downturn in state tax receipts during the slumping economy this is a strong statement of support for UGA by the governor,” says President Michael F. Adams.
“The legislature will be able to fund few new programs and enhancements this year as they absorb the budget reductions for both fiscal years ’02 and ’03,” says Vice President for Government Relations Steve Wrigley, “but that doesn’t mean they won’t do everything they can to meet the university’s priorities.”
Beyond the university’s top priority of maintaining competitive salaries, the governor’s budget for fiscal year 2003 proposes $27.7 million in “hold harmless” funding to make up for credit hours lost in the 1997 conversion from quarters to semesters. UGA this year has returned to more than 99 percent of its credit hour production pre-conversion, leading the University System, but formula funding lags actual enrollment by two years.
The governor also proposed in his fiscal year 2002 amended budget $10 million in bonds to match $10 million in federal funds and $20 million in funding raised privately by UGA for the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. Construction is expected to begin in 2003.
Likewise, the university’s top item on the regents’ “small cap” list--those capital funding priorities under $5 million each--is included in the governor’s plan: $4.3 million for the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Animal Health and Bioresources Center, allowing replacement of woefully outdated animal holding pens and laboratories.
An additional $240,000 was proposed for pre-design plans for the new special collections library.
The governor proposed three Eminent Scholars for the Georgia Research Alliance, two of which are to be at the university in the areas of drug discovery and crop genomics.
Absorbing the 5 percent budget reduction for fiscal year 2003 means a sharp reduction in maintenance, repair and rehabilitation funding for the University System for the coming year. Some other regents’ requests, such as the $2.85 million in health insurance funding for graduate teaching and research assistants, were not included in the governor’s proposal to the General Assembly.

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