The Compass

Media Credit: Special The Chancellor of the Board of Regents, Erroll Davis, released a letter and two documents outlining University System of Georgia school's proposed budget-cut summaries today.

A proposed budget-cut summary was released today by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

Over the weekend college presidents and administrators from the 35 USG institutions were asked by Chancellor Erroll Davis to produce an outline summarizing cuts that could be made to meet the additional $300 million deficit in educational funding.

Listed among the cuts were enrollment caps and roll-backs, approximately 4,000 additional layoffs across the system, campuses and branch locations being scaled back or closed, whole academic programs eliminated, elimination of all 4-H programs across the state and loss of $100 million in research funding for Georgia Tech.

Davis issued a letter along with summaries of buget-cut scenarios sent to Sen. Seth Harp and state Rep. Earl Ehrhart of the appropriations subcommittee on higher education.

GSC's portion to fill is $3.37 million, on top of the $2 million already cut for this fiscal year. Their plan was outlined in four pages of the excecutive summary, and included the elimination of the Regent's test and associated programs, the Steps-to-College summer program, the swimming programs on the Oakwood campus and the reduction of the institutional student work study program by 50 percent.

The GSC administrators held true to their promise of no layoffs and no salary cuts for faculty and staff. Also noticably absent were the ten furlough days that were thought to be a certainty in the emergency faculty/staff meeting Friday.

However, under the headline of "Other proposed significant actions" of the executive summary was "elimination of retirees who are currently working," which would mean further reduction in class sections since many retirees are faculty.

The BOR's summary was issued at the end of the day and neither Marya Leatherwood nor Paul Glaser could be reached for comment.

Chancellor Davis asked colleges and universities not to consider raising tuition and student fees when preparing their reduction proposals. But with less funding and greater enrollment, they were having to make some drastic cuts. Cuts the chancellor hopes won't have to be made.

"These plans should be viewed as informational and not as recommendations for several reasons," Davis said in the letter.

If the additional $300 million was cut from the budget as outlined today, he said, it would lead to a reduction in the number of students able to attend college. It would dramatically extend the length of time it would take for a student to graduate, as courses needed would be unavailable. He also said that it would endanger communities in need of graduates from critical programs such as nursing and dental hygiene.

"A reduction of this size is not in the best interest of Georgia and its future economic development," Davis said.

He further pointed out that the USG does not make budget recommendations directly to the General Assembly; the Governor makes those recommendations. Davis said he will support any revisions the Governor may make to his budget for FY2011 with the revised USG plans.

Along with the four-page executive summary is a 142-page detailed summary of budget reductions listed by school name. Outlined are the actions proposed, amount of dollars involved and the impact on students, faculty, staff and institution.

GSC's scenario consists of cuts already mentioned as well as not replacing 28 faculty nor the 16 staff positions that were vacated, reducing utility expenses through conservation efforts and other maintenance and operations deductions, a reduction in faculty and staff travel and reducing operational expenses such as mailing, copying and testing materials.

Anyone concerned about the proposed budget cuts should contact their legislators, Sloan Jones, director of public relations and marketing said at the meeting for faculty on Friday.

When contacting anyone in the legislative office Jones said that GSC e-mail, letterhead or phones should not be used. Contact must be made directly as an individual citizen of Georgia.

"Don't let education suffer," Jones said. "(Contacting legislators) is how we can become proactive."

At the time of the chancellor's letter, the BOR had not reviewed or approved the budget scenarios submitted. Davis said the BOR will make the final decisions about budget actions by the 35 colleges and institutions once it receives the fiscal year 2011 appropriation from the General Assembly.

What students can do

Fan the Facebook page USG Students for Quality Education. They are planning various activities to protest budget cuts and possible tuition increases.

An online petition has been created opposing the budget cuts. http://www.petitiononline.com/georgia1/petition.html

You can use this link to locate your state legislators http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/FindLegislator.htm.

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