Local News
Rep. Austin Scott unhappy with university system budget choices
TIFTON — Gubernatorial candidate and State Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) said Wednesday that he is disappointed with the presentations made by UGA president Michael Adams and Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Wednesday morning before the House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
Legislators are expected to hear from state agency leaders for several more days before drafting a 2010-2011 budget during one of the poorest economies in recent history.
Scott isn’t a member of the subcommittee, but he said in a telephone interview late Wednesday that he was able to attend because of his seniority in the House. He said Adams’s recommendation to the subcommittee eliminating the state’s 4-H program and the state’s county Extension Service network would be defeated.
“The legislators will send him (Adams) a message of a resounding ‘no,’” concerning the elimination of funding for 4-H and the Extension Service, Scott said.
He added that neither Adams nor Davis presented tangible ways to reduce the University System of Georgia’s budget and that he didn’t agree with their primary idea of a solution.
“For the most part, they have proposed to raise tuition and fees and done very little to show us actual, specific budget reductions,” Scott said.
Scott said the total budget for the USG was $5.2 billion in 2008 and the proposed budget for 2011 is $5.397 billion.
“Anytime we have reduced their state appropriation, they have raised tuition and fees on students,” Scott said. “Two years ago they promised they wouldn’t raise tuition and now they are saying they might break that promise.”
The budget proposed by the USG, Scott said, adds approximately $1,000 in fees students must pay to colleges yearly.
“We asked them to bring us their proposed potential budget cuts and instead, they say they want to raise tuition and eliminate 4-H. The lack of respect regents have shown the members of the legislature is beyond anything I’ve ever seen up here.”
Scott said increasing tuition and fees for students amounts to a tax increase.
Scott faxed a page of information to The Tifton Gazette Wednesday that he said illustrated the salaries of some of the USG administration and faculty. The information contained percentages of increases and decreases for some of the top-paid USG employees. The information shows that Adams’s 2009 salary was $607,417.98 and his 2008 salary was $595,487.04, representing an increase of 2 percent. A professor of plant biology stationed in Athens received an increase in salary from $255,129.18 in 2008 to $264,162.18 in 2009, representing more than an 8 percent increase. Stephen Baginski, a professor of accounting with the USG, made $270,982.91 in 2008 and received a 26.18 percent raise to $341,928.51 for 2009, according to the report.
“They are sitting here telling us that they want to eliminate 4-H and it cost the state approximately $10 million for 200,000 students statewide to participate in 4-H,” Scott said.
The state’s colleges and universities receive appropriations based on the number of students enrolled in the institutions, Scott said, whether or not those students earn a college degree. He said that less than 60 percent of those who enter the system actually graduate.
“The bottom line is that we shouldn’t be teaching remedial classes on the university campuses,” Scott said. “They should be taught at the access institutions or at the two-year colleges.”
Scott said it costs no more for a college to pay for an instructor and pay for heating, cooling and electricity for a classroom if a few more students are added and the formula for reimbursement based on enrollment is flawed.
“It encourages them to bring students into the system that would be better served in other areas,” Scott said.
Scott said the state’s technical colleges are taking cuts as well during the budgeting process. But, he said, those institutions are still receiving an increase in funding from last year. He said that the technical college system received $592 million for 2008 and are expected to receive $636 million in 2011.
To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.
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