Photo: Dan W. Durning, public service associate for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and adjunct professor of political science. Photo by Paul Efland.

By Ann Allen

In 1980 Dan Durning packed his belongings into a U-Haul and left Little Rock, Ark., where he had worked in state government and run a consulting firm, for graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

That road trip eventually took him from the West Coast, to North Carolina, to Georgia, to Uzhgorod. . . . Uzhgorod? More on that later.

Starting again as a student was at first an intimidating experience, Durning admits, but he soon found Berkeley to be a "wonderful intellectual environment." It was when he began his first teaching position, at the Institute of Policy Sciences at Duke University, that he realized that being in the classroom all day was not for him.

"I felt I was a better policy analyst and practition-er than I was a full-time instructor," he says. Hence the attraction of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, where he could combine government outreach with teaching. He joined the institute's faculty in 1989.

Which is how he got to Uzhgorod. In 1993 a call came from the regents' Global Center and Institute for East-West Studies.

"They thought the University of Georgia's university-based outreach model could be adapted to help the five-country Carpathian Euroregion--Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia--with efforts to reform the economy and governments," Durning explains.

Although the first proposal was rejected, funding was subsequently received from both the Eurasia Foundation and USAID. Despite the inherent difficulties of cross-cultural programs, the three-year Uzhgorod project stayed on track and culminated with the official dedication of the Center for Public Administration Reform and Assistance in June 1997 as a unit of Uzhgorod State University. The project's impact has been felt on both sides, Durning firmly believes.

In recognition of his dedication to the project, Durning received an honorary degree from Uzhgorod State University in 1995, when it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its creation.

The Uzhgorod project is one of the models being used in developing a new Center for the Improvement of World Democracy by UGA's office of the vice president for public service and outreach.

Here in Georgia, Durning provides technical assistance to local governments interested in the costs and benefits of city-county consolidation or large-scale annexation. He has developed a methodological approach that uses data on population, households and businesses, plus revenue and expenditure trends, to estimate the impact on government revenues and expenditures, as well as citizen tax liability.

"Our ultimate goal is to provide a readable, workable document that officials or community commissions can use to help make informed decisions," he says.

His extensive work in Georgia has made him a nationally recognized expert on consolidation. He is currently carrying out a fiscal-impact analysis for Covington, which is considering an annexation that would nearly double the size of the city. In the cities of Statesboro and Tifton, similar analyses helped officials decide to proceed with referendums on annexation. In other cities, analyses indicated that annexation would not be fiscally wise, and the proposals did not move forward.

Durning shares his expertise by teaching public-policy analysis in the university's M.P.A. program.

"Teaching helps me stay connected with what is being written in the field," he says. "On the flip side, my work in technical assistance and applied policy research with the Vinson Institute helps me bring the reality of public policy analysis into the classroom."

He believes that the university's outreach goal--bringing the resources of the university to bear on problems facing people, governments, and businesses in Georgia--strengthens the ties between a public university and the taxpayers who pay for it.

"I am pleased that in my position I can use my education and experience to help local governments and state agencies address important issues facing them," he says.

"I'm also happy that as part of the university I can devote some time to research and teaching, so that I can continue to build intellectual capital for use in outreach work."