Campus FY ’05 budget presentatiON
By Michael F. Adams
Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 3:30 p.m.
Room 248, Student Learning Center


• Good afternoon, and thank you for coming. I want to talk with you today about the biggest challenge this university has faced for the past two years and one which continues to loom – the declining state budget. I also want to talk about the legislative climate in Atlanta and our private giving efforts.

• While the challenge of the declining state budget and its impact on our mission is a critical one, and one that takes a lot of time and ingenuity to address, it is important to remember the successes we have had.

• First, the students who enroll and study at UGA continue to excel. While we won’t know for certain until after the fall term begins, it appears that the freshman class of 2004 will set new records for quality.

• Since 2001, UGA students have won 25 nationally competitive academic scholarships, a record that stands with any of our peers. This year alone, nine students won either Marshall, Rhodes, Truman, Goldwater, Gates-Cambridge or Mellon scholarships.

• Second, UGA’s faculty is among the best in the nation. Two particular honors tell that story: Eve Troutt Powell, an associate professor of history, was one of 32 recipients of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." The $500,000, no-strings-attached grant is to be used in support of the recipient’s research. I believe Dr. Powell is taking her family to Egypt this summer.

• Jeffrey Bennetzen, a GRA Eminent Scholar in molecular genetics, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a capstone accomplishment for an American scientist. Dr. Bennetzen joins six other members of the UGA faculty who are members of the Academy.

• External funding for UGA research is on pace for another double-digit increase. In an increasingly competitive funding climate, the fact that our faculty proposals are being funded at higher and higher levels each year clearly speaks to the quality of the UGA research program. Total external research funding for FY03 was almost $150 million.

• We opened the Student Learning Center, which has exceeded all expectations and is truly the academic heart of the campus. The Complex Carbohydrate Research Center is operating in its new home. And the residence halls and dining commons of the East Campus Village will open for the fall term.

• All of this success occurs against the backdrop of the most difficult state budget climate since the early 1990s. It is that climate – and our reaction and adaptation to it – that I want to discuss with you this afternoon.


• The state Capitol has changed, and changed dramatically, over the last few election cycles, and that matters, because with the turnover comes a loss of institutional memory and institutional knowledge. The reality is that the General Assembly does not know us as well as it did 10 years ago, and new legislators are sometimes unable to grasp the complexities of the state budget process fast enough and well enough to understand and help meet our needs.

•The House of Representatives this session consisted of 102 Democrats, 77 Republicans and 1 independent. The Senate consisted of 26 Democrats and 30 Republicans. 

• Since 1998, there have been 121 new members elected to the General Assembly out of a total of 236 – more than half of the legislators in this state have been in office three terms or fewer.

•There are very few unchallenged seats in the upcoming elections.

•The balance of power is at stake in every election, creating a very fluid political climate.

• We have an educational task ahead of us with the legislature. We can no longer assume that legislators have a basic understanding of the comprehensive and complex research institution that is the University of Georgia.

• The state of Georgia has a total budget of $16 billion, including both discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Higher education generally, and UGA specifically, are competing in the Capitol for a shrinking piece of that $16 billion pie. We fight for funding with K-12 education, with Medicaid, with Corrections and with many other agencies and programs, all with their supporters.

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