The $32 billion budget Georgia legislators passed last week includes a $66 million cut to public colleges and universities, on top of a $72 million reduction to the state’s funding formula due to declining enrollment.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue, a former governor, said the additional cut will hurt the 20 of 26 institutions that don’t have carryover funds from this year to fill the gap. The USG is also dealing with a pandemic-related 10% cut in 2020—about $231 million—that was never restored.
“This is an incredibly disappointing outcome, given the work done over the years by our state leaders to elevate higher education and send Georgia on a path to ascension,” Perdue said in a news release. “It will have a significant impact on institutions and the services that students and families depend on to advance their prosperity and help Georgia succeed.”
The University of Georgia is one of the six institutions with enough reserves to cover its $12 million share of the $66 million cut. However, the University of North Georgia, which has a campus in Watkinsville, will take a $2.5 million hit.
“This new and unexpected budget cut is concerning, as the university is already in the process of absorbing about $13 million in tuition revenue losses and state funding formula reductions related to credit hour declines occurring between Fiscal Year 2021 and Fiscal Year 2025,” UNG President Bonita Jacobs said in a statement on the school’s website.
The USG found itself caught up in hospital politics during the session. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, whose father wants to sell property in Butts County for a new hospital, unsuccessfully sought to loosen regulations requiring a “certificate of need” to build a new hospital. Certificates of need are intended to ensure that hospitals provide a wide variety of medical services, rather than cater to the most financially lucrative patients and procedures, and to keep a new hospital from driving an older one out of business. Wellstar Health System, which owns a hospital nearby, opposed the legislation.
At the same time, Wellstar also has a letter of intent with Augusta University to take over operations of the medical school’s health-care system. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Blake Tillery (R-Valdosta) cut $105 million from the higher education budget, which the House partially restored. $105 million is the amount the legislature, at Gov. Brian Kemp’s request, had earlier given Augusta University to improve its record-keeping system.
There is a chance the rest could be restored, either through a line-item veto or when the legislature convenes again next January and passes mid-year budget adjustments. Kemp said the budget as passed includes “significant holes.”
Lawmakers did find funding, though, to boost the HOPE Scholarship back up to full tuition. Other than for a small group of elite Zell Miller scholars, the legislature cut back HOPE benefits during the Great Recession because of falling lottery revenue. That was done over the objections of some Democrats who argued for an income cap instead.
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