Real doomsday scenario shaping up to stunt the state

Macon Telegraph: 

It must have been a tremendous blow to the University System of Georgia’s 35 college and university presidents. After cutting budgets repeatedly over the last couple of years, they were ordered to paint a doomsday scenario. What steps would they take to erase, on average, 20 percent of their budgets? Of the system as a whole, that’s $300 million. And the presidents only had 24 hours to come up with plans they were told not to suggest unless they were willing to implement.

No need to outline all of the items suggested for cuts: more than 4,000 positions, gone, elimination of academic programs forcing students to change majors or transfer, tuition increases and closed facilities and possible mergers. The real question is, what will the University System of Georgia look like if these cuts become reality?

Will Georgia and Georgia Tech remain in the same class as their competition? After years of upping the ante, UGA and Tech will find it much harder to attract top students and faculty. At a time when enrollment is growing, the USG will have to close its doors to prospective students by capping enrollment on many campuses. And while other university systems are having budget woes, too, the neighboring states, and most of their elite schools, are not being hit as hard. UGA stands to lose about $59 million. And why?

The General Assembly has shown a propensity to cut rather than enhance revenues through modest tax increases. They have seen fit to give tax breaks to almost every sector of the economy that asks, and now those cuts and the proposed cuts may cripple economic development in the state for decades as other states clean our clock with a more work ready population.

And while the economic tsunami should get its share of the blame, the rosy forecasts of growth used to justify tax breaks haven’t worked out that way, and all Georgians are going to pay the price for the governor’s and General Assembly’s “business-like” approach that’s akin to the Wall Street meltdown.

— Charles E. Richardson, for the Editorial Board

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House