DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia’s university system grilled by state budget writers
Chancellor says he’s opposed to furloughing employees
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Many state agencies are furloughing employees to make ends meet, but University System Chancellor Erroll Davis told legislative budget writers Thursday that he doesn’t like the idea of forcing workers to take days off without pay.
Davis, who heads the 35-school University System of Georgia, took heat from lawmakers during a budget hearing Thursday over the lack of furloughs and the more than $7 million universities are spending on advertising.
Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com
Rep. Butch Parrish (left), D-Swainsboro, listens as Rep. Ed Rynders (second from left), R-Albany asks questions during a budget hearing Thursday.
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Davis told lawmakers, “I am philosophically opposed to furloughs. I think they just postpone (dealing with) problems.”
Davis spent more than an hour going over a system budget that he said would be cut about 10 percent under Gov. Sonny Perdue’s recommendations. All state agencies are taking cuts because of a $2 billion budget shortfall.
Several state agencies are making employees take days off without pay, including the massive Department of Human Resources.
Rep. Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta) questioned why the university system, which has more than 40,000 employees, is not furloughing employees. He noted that private companies are laying off workers, and many government employees are being forced to take time off.
“What has the academic world done to share in the economic downturn?” Martin asked.
Davis responded, “We can’t furlough teachers. They have to teach.”
The system is saving money by not filling 1,191 vacant jobs. Another 55 employees have been laid off, mostly at Georgia Tech.
However, unlike other state employees, system workers are getting to keep the 2.5 percent pay raises approved by legislators last year. Faculty work under contracts, and system officials worried that they’d be sued if they took back the raises. The state’s other 60,000 state employees received no cost-of-living raise.
Martin also criticized the system for spending money on recruitment advertising when schools like the University of Georgia are rejecting far more applicants than they accept.
Davis said the system needs to make Georgians aware of the programs offered at its schools.
Also Thursday, the state Department of Transportation commissioner told lawmakers the state may put private advertisements on HERO trucks and on Georgia Navigator traffic camera feeds to raise money.
DOT Commissioner Gena Evans made a pitch to lawmakers for more funding, saying Georgia is the third-fastest growing state with the second-lowest per capita transportation funding in the nation.
She noted that even if the Legislature allowed a Georgia referendum on a new transportation tax, new money probably could not hit the DOT budget until 2012 at the very earliest.
Also Thursday, state Economic Development officials took some heat from Sen. George Hooks (D-Americus) Thursday for plans to close a visitor information center in Plains, Ga., home of former President Jimmy Carter.
The agency would save $186,000 by closing the welcome center, and Gov. Sonny Perdue included the cut in his budget proposal for fiscal 2010, which begins July 1.
Hooks, who has represented the Plains area in the Legislature for almost three decades, brought up a 1977 state law that says the state must have a “tourist center” in the “vicinity” of the home of any Georgian elected president.
“I don’t know how you’re going to staff it, but you’ve got to keep it open,” Hooks told Economic Development Commissioner Ken Stewart.
Stewart indicated he didn’t know about the law and would look into the issue.
— Staff writer Ariel Hart contributed to this report.
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