Faced with strained finances and a contentious relationship with the General Assembly, the Board of Regents has chosen an insider who knows state finances and Capitol politics to become the University System of Georgia’s next chancellor.
It has been well-known around the statehouse for weeks that state Rep. Hank Huckaby, R-Watkinsville, was the choice of Gov. Nathan Deal to lead the 35-college system.
The two worked together when Deal was a state Senate leader and Huckaby was then-Gov. Zell Miller’s budget director in the early 1990s. Huckaby was Deal’s state House floor leader this year when he joined the Legislature.
Friends and longtime colleagues describe Huckaby, 69, as the perfect fit for a system coming off one of its roughest legislative sessions in memory.
“They need help in all of Hank’s strengths,” said Dan Ebersole, a retired state treasurer who worked with Huckaby in the Miller administration. “Finance is one, higher education policy is another, legislative relations is another.
“He is the round peg for their round hole.”
Former state senator and prison director Wayne Garner called it “the best appointment I have seen in my 31 years at the state Capitol, and that includes my own appointment.
“We need a chancellor with some common sense and ability to work with folks and not always be flying at 40,000 feet,” said Garner, a lobbyist who is mayor of Carrollton.
Huckaby, a first-term lawmaker, was named Friday as the sole finalist to replace retiring Chancellor Erroll Davis.
Tension is nothing new between the University System, its regents and the General Assembly. While lawmakers approve how much money the system receives, the regents decide how it is spent and set tuition and fees for the 35 public colleges.
As the recession hit state finances and lawmakers began slashing budgets, the relationship between Davis and the General Assembly became even more strained than normal. Some lawmakers thought the system wanted to avoid making the same kinds of tough cutbacks other state agencies were forced into. While other agencies were cutting budgets and employees, some complained, the system was raising tuition and fees to make up for any losses.
So lawmakers cut big during the 2011 session. State funding for the University System is down $300 million from fiscal 2009.
Something, lawmakers said, had to change.
In an interview Friday, Huckaby said, “If I have any strengths, one of mine has been to see both sides and find a common path. It isn’t rocket science. It’s hard work. You need to stay in touch with people and listen to them and work through any misconceptions there might be.”
Bill Tomlinson, a former state budget director, said Huckaby “has never been afraid of a challenge. Hank is smart. And even more than being budget smart, he’s politically astute,” Tomlinson said. “He knows how to play the political game.”
Huckaby is a protégé of Miller, father of the HOPE scholarship and still one of the most popular political figures in the state. In 1960, Huckaby was a student in Miller’s political science class at Young Harris College. Four years later, he helped run Miller’s unsuccessful campaign for Congress. After Miller was elected governor in 1974, he appointed Huckaby to run the Senate Research Office.
Huckaby began work in state government in 1973 as a senior policy planner for higher education for then-Gov. Jimmy Carter. He also worked in the George Busbee and Joe Frank Harris administrations before Miller was elected governor in 1990.
Miller made him state budget director in the midst of a national recession and in his first year, the state had to cut spending and jobs to balance the budget.
He left in 1995 and headed the fiscal research program at Georgia State University before joining the University of Georgia, where he became senior vice president of finance and administration. He retired in 2006.
In the middle of his University System years, he took time off to serve as Gov. Sonny Perdue’s first chief financial officer. As in the case with Miller, he was brought on board at a time when the state faced a financial crisis. He worked for Perdue through his initial budget in 2003 before returning to UGA.
Huckaby returned to the Capitol this year after winning a House seat as a Republican from Watkinsville.
His son, Clay, is a longtime lobbyist at the Capitol. Among his clients is private Emory University.
While he was elected as a Republican and will be working with a GOP administration and General Assembly, Huckaby started in politics working with Democrats and has been able to operate on both sides of the political aisle.
According to state ethics commission and federal records, Huckaby and his wife, Amy, have donated to the campaigns of a diverse list of candidates, from Democrats like Miller, Roy Barnes and Mark Taylor to Republicans Deal, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga.
Keith Mason, who was Miller’s chief of staff, said Huckaby is the perfect fit for the time because he’s pragmatic, he doesn’t make enemies and he is someone who will come in, do what needs to be done and leave.
“I don’t think Hank views himself as someone who is going to take the University System to new academic heights, but he is the guy who can right-size it in a way that doesn’t diminish its academic standing,” Mason said.
In an interview after the Regents made their announcement, Huckaby noted that one of the books he’s now reading is “Academically Adrift,” an interesting choice for a new University System chancellor.
The book argues that many students learn very little in college.
Staff writer Laura Diamond contributed to this report.
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