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• Having said that, it is important to note that UGA received
support in four key areas during this session:
•
Approval of a two-percent pay raise, which is vitally important
in the national and even international market where we are competing
for top faculty and staff and trying to retain the faculty and
staff we have.
• Funding for the Lamar Dodd School
of Art building, for which we will break ground this fall just
south of the Performing and Visual Arts Center and the Georgia
Museum of Art.
• Funding for completion of the
Animal Health Research Center, an important facility for the
continued expansion of the biomedical and health research program.
• Full funding of the USG formula, which begins to
help us cope with the growth in enrollment.
• But the reality that we are facing every day is that
UGA’s base state budget today is $48 million dollars smaller
than it was in FY 2002 – and based on the budget adopted
by the General Assembly this year, that number will grow to
a total of $73.5 million next year.
* I don’t want to delve too far into the minutiae of the
state budget for higher education, but those cuts total 17.7
percent in the resident instruction portion of UGA’ s
budget and 19.4 percent to the "B" budget, which primarily
supports service and outreach efforts around the state.
• Additionally, the state has not provided funding
to help address the $4.3 million increase in health insurance
premiums that have occurred over the past two years, and lottery
funds that would have provided $4 million for equipment have
been eliminated.
• This decline in state funding
has occurred at a time when UGA’s budget is changing,
as are budgets at state universities across the nation. First,
let me remind you that no state money is appropriated directly
to the University of Georgia but instead flows through the Board
of Regents.
• This slide shows the various components of the UGA
budget, which totals $1.2 billion. I would call your attention
to the fact that 35 percent of the UGA budget, or $410 million
after the mid-year adjustments, came from the state this year;
just a few years ago, that number was as high as 43 percent.
• The change is a combination of the decline in state
funding and increases in other funding sources, particularly
external funding for research.
• At the same time that the state has been reducing its
financial support for the University of Georgia, enrollment
has increased.
Since 1999, enrollment at UGA has increased by 4,185 students
and credit hour production is up 9.6 percent. The flagship institution
of this state has been asked to do more with less, and it has
done so, with, as I mentioned earlier, great academic success.
• We are facing a policy issue of declining state
appropriations, growing sentiment against tuition increases
and continued demands for quality and increased services.
• If we look at state funding per student,
we see that it has dropped by $2,645 since 1999, while tuition
has increased only $898. We are passing on only one-third
of the reduction in our state budget to the students.
• UGA’s tuition compares very favorably with
other state universities, even with therecent tuition increase.
In fact, in the most recent U.S. News "Best Colleges"
issue, UGA has the lowest cost of the public schools on the
"Great Deals at Great Schools" list. (UNC will see
a 10-percent hike in tuition for the upcoming year.)
• At the risk of repeating what many of you have heard
me say before, let me remind you that there is no such thing
as cheap excellence. I’m very happy for UGA to be considered
a great school by a national publication; and while I do not
want to be the most expensive school on that list, it would
benefit us greatly to be closer to the middle of the range
– and UGA would still be a very good deal.
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