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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