Newspaper Page Text
MONEY: Cuts may come with new budget
► From Pag* 1 •
offer and retired from being
state 4-H director in 2009.
“I reached retirement
age and was offered the
opportunity to do a little
bit of an early retirement,
help Extension and our col
lege meet its budget cuts,”
Ryles said.
For Ryles who had
been involved in 4-H in
some capacity since he first
joined in 1966 in the fifth
grade —• retiring early set
off titters of concern among
some 4-H members that all
clearly was not well in the
agricultural world.
“I can remember know
ing something might have
been up when he was retir
ing so early because no one
knew he was going to do
that,” said Katie Comer, a
sophomore from Carrollton
who worked with Ryles as a
state 4-H president. "I cur
rently work at the Georgia
4-H Foundation as a stu
dent worker, and I remem
ber the day, last February
when the budget cut came
out that they were going to
end all Cooperative
Extension services for 4-H,
and I remember it being a
very big deal.”
And a “big deal” it cer
tainly was.
“We’ve lost 88 county
agent positions across the
state,” said Beverly Sparks,
associate dean for exten
sion in CAES. She said 26
additional positions were
gone as well l9 specialist
positions and seven admin
istrators.
“We are going through,
as we speak, where we are
reanalyzing our resources
and county presences,”
Sparks said. "With all the
budget cuts we’ve had and
loss of all the positions, we
will no longer be able to
provide the same service to
all counties.”
The frenzy to save 4-H
“When your budgets are
cut 24 percent, you’ve got
to downsize,” Angle said.
“We crafted a plan where
the damage is minimized.
There is still damage
there is no way around the
fact that what we are doing
LUCKILY THE GM COLLEGE DISCOUNT DOESN’T. B
hundreds even thousands on anew Chevrolet, J Buick or GMC. If you're in
college, a grad program or even if you’re a recent grad, take advantage of this \ B>;
couscewscouwT discount today and get a great deal on anew ride to call your own. Check it out:
2010 Chevrolet Camaro LS CSIV/IC 2010 CMC T * rratn SLE FWD
—— ■— "-■■■ -
MSGP (stkta prk* on vehfcfc) 3.555 00 MSRP (slitter fra on whfcto) M4SMUJO k ' \
Don’t forget... you can also combine your discount with most currant incentives. > ’* J
■
gmcollegediscount.com/UGA
-nwriTt -ffi- jha
ft' g T‘flllrr‘-ririTifnrl-. rnThiio Htar.il i,, 11, . . 'm?k r , f , , ,- 1 - lin Mf .1
‘j 1 ' ’ W(| riks/Kre i'* '■ **, y 1 ' & X 7jsi * ■ <g*,‘ ■£ 'viC'"'
is something we don’t want
to be doing.”
The original budget pro
posal called for 285 layoffs
in 4-H and Extension, clos
ing 4-H facilities such as
Rock Eagle and maintain
ing only a custodial staff
“until a disposition plan
could be developed and
executed” and closing 79
Cooperative Extension
offices.
Angle said the programs
will suffer from the cuts the
college has faced, but they
are not to the extent the
University initially suggest
ed.
“We are trying to make
the most efficient use of
the resources we have left,”
Sparks said.
According to the col
lege's “Review of County
Operations” presented in
September, 4-H and
Extension services will be
restructured into six tiers.
Each county in the state
will be classified from tier
one to tier six. Tier one will
have no local Extension
office, only a basic 4-H pro
gram using an agent from a
neighboring county and
will receive 50 percent of
funding from the county.
Tier six will have multiple
county agents, various
sources of funding, admin
istrative support in a coun
ty office and program assis
tants.
“The main criteria [for
tiers] would be the popula
tion of the county, the pop
ulation of school-age chil
dren in the county, the
presence of agriculture,
opportunities for agents
and shared resources
across county lines,”
Sparks said.
She said there are 25 tier
six counties many are in
areas of intense agriculture
and others are in the met
ro-Atlanta area.
“It affects 4-Hers and
employees, because they of
course get budget cuts and
furloughs, but it affects the
program as. a whole,”
Comer said of the restruc
turing plan. “If we don’t
have certain money to set
aside for renovations to
Rock Eagle or for scholar
ships or for kids to do proj
ects, then there’s no money
“There is still
damage - there is no
way around the fact
that we are doing
something we don’t
want to be doing.”
Scott Angle
CAES Dean
for 4-Hers to prosper and
grow.”
Research Farms
Much of the University’s
effects on the state are the
result of research done at
agricultural experiment
stations and other facilities
throughout Georgia. The
University’s proposal called
for closing five of them
Blairsville’s Georgia
Mountain Research &
Education Center,
Savannah’s Bamboo Farm
& Coastal Gardens.
Camilla’s C.M. Stripling
Irrigation Research Park,
Reidsville’s Vidalia Onion
and Vegetable Research
Center and the Attapulgus
Research and Education
Center.
Barring a miracle, CAES
is about to lose three.
“We are moving ahead
with two small pieces of
property. One is called our
Redbud farm, in northwest
Georgia. There’s another—
I guess it’s about 100
acres down around Griffin
that we are actively mar
keting right now.” Angle
said.
The third farm. Angle
wouldn’t talk about.
“It’s a high profile farm
that is potentially going on
the market,” he said. “We’re
just not to the point yet
where we even have per
mission to sell it but we’re
talking about it enough
that it’s pretty common
knowledge that there’s one
large farm that’s being con
sidered.”
Though the first two
farms were not on the bud
get proposal. Angle would
not comment on whether
this farm was on the origi
nal list or not.
NEWS
He said CAES manages
17,700 acres of land, and
recuperation of the sales of
these farms can help the
ones that remain.
“It’ll help us build up
the farms we continue to
manage and support in a
more appropriate way with
better facilities and better
equipment, and reduce our
operating costs, so it was a
pretty easy decision to
make that this was the
direction we needed to go,”
Angle said.
Though it is not finan
cially associated with
CAES, the State Botanical
Gardens has an intellectual
relationship with the col
lege and both could be
affected if additional cuts
are made to the facility.
“We’re looking at how
we can generate our inter
nal budget so we’re not so
dependent on state fund
ing,” said Shirley Berry, the
administrative manager for
the gardens, in an inter
view Oct. 22.
Berry said one student
position was lost because
of FYII cuts which origi
nally proposed to close the
gardens entirely —but
other than that the facili
ties were not devastated
by the reductions in fund
ing.
She said contractors
and private donors contin
ue to show their support
for the gardens, but added
the administration was
revisiting the idea of charg
ing an admission fee.
What the future holds
Berry and her colleagues
might have to entertain
those thoughts, however, if
the FYI 2 budget requires
further reductions.
“We had to submit a
budget request to the
Governor’s Office in
September,” said John
Millsaps, spokesman for
the Board of Regents. “We
really won’t know the out
come of that until the new
governor is in office.”
At its August meeting,
the Regents approved a
FYI 2 budget request of
$2.1 billion. This includes
$145 million for student
growth, $8.7 million for
The Red * Black | Monday, November 8, aoio
Fiscal Year 2012 Budget
The FYI 2 budget request ot $2.1 billion approved August 2010 by
the Board ot Regents for the University System of Georgia includes:
$145 million for student growth
$8.7 million for fadiity operation and maintenance
$lB million for health benefits
$4.9 million for new retirees' health insurance
$1.7 million for the Universtty/MCG partnership
$432.3 million capital budget request
facility operation and main
tenance, $lB million for
health benefits, $4.9 million
for new retirees’ health
insurance, $1.7 million for
the University/MCG part
nership and a capital bud
get request of $432.3 mil
lion.
The new budget propos
al, however, leaves plenty
of room for cutbacks.
Millsaps said the
Regents approved addi
tional FYII reduction plans
for operating at 4, 6 and 8
percent s77 million, slls
million and $154 million
respectively, according to a
Regents news release.
“Right now we’re oper
ating at the 4 percent
level,” he said.
If adopted, any of these
three plans would carry
into FYI 2, according to the
news release.
Combined with the 10
percent proposed reduc
tion plan for FYI 2 the
Regents adopted at this
meeting, the University
System of Georgia could
be down $192 million.
For CAES, this means
nothing but bad news.
“I would not be happy if
we had additional cuts
imposed upon us in ’12,”
Angle said. “That would be
double jeopardy. We’ve
already taken cuts in those
Congratulations new
Palladia Members!
J AlnoQ Brarwdl McCu&c*
V HI § Anne Karam
• f Bnitam Scrudder
MtKMien
j,. \ s? i .MaHt**" I '' w **" ,s
Bu PrOurtoe (,cbh
I Chronnc Akiih
Fanils Weinstein
areas, and I’d hate to have
to get cut again.”
Angle felt for the others
in the same situation as
CAES, but said there was
little he could do.
“We don’t have any abil
ity to help pick up any of
their lost resources because
we’re struggling with much
bigger budget cuts of our
own,” he said. “We’re not
the white knight who can
ride in and save them if
they do see budget cuts.”
CAES is primarily B
budget which University
President Michael Adams
said was less protected
than A budget, which is
mostly academic funding.
“The B budgets we
believe are very, very impor
tant but the legislature
chose to make bigger cuts
there than they did in the
A budgets,” Adams said.
Angle said he felt many
other colleges at the
University faced lesser cuts
because they received
stimulus funds which
will most likely be gone by
FY 12 —and have more A
budget criteria for protec
tion.
“Let’s assume there are
more cuts to the College of
Agriculture, whether
they’re fair or not," Angle
said. “We don’t have any
thing left to cut.”
Rachei Paoock
Risrhi Rdefonl
Stephanie Guonan
Tcnal Salmon
Tracy Young
YasminYonis
Frames Micklo.
Ceadcs Goodwin
Gore Tjvkir Johnson
Hannah Gndy
Ftather FJatzenbuhler
Jilban Turner
Katie O'Shea
RahaSabet
3