Funding gap rises in MCG expansion

ATLANTA --- A Senate panel chewing over budget requests for higher education learned Wednesday that plans to expand the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and to Athens, Savannah and Albany might cost as much as $210 million over the next 12 years.

But it was a multimillion-dollar gap between the estimated cost and what budget writers planned to spend to combine new space for medical students with a new dental school in Augusta that dismayed several members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education.

Gov. Sonny Perdue's recommended budget for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins July 1, contains $70 million in bonds to build a new dental school at the college. An additional $30 million would come from previous state spending on the project and other funding sources.

MCG President Daniel Rahn told the subcommittee the dental school will cost about $109 million to build, but only if the state saves $19 million by constructing it along with facilities needed for the medical school expansion so that some space could be shared.

That difference between the funding identified for the project and the $128 million it would cost to build the dental school on its own alarmed some.

"The amount of money we put in the budget doesn't even put a roof on the dental school," said committee Chairman Sen. John Wiles, R-Kennesaw.

A report from Tripp Umbach, a consultant hired by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, recommends the medical college expand from 745 students to 1,200 statewide by 2020, adding 50 students a year to the Augusta campus and the rest at a new four-year campus in Athens in partnership with the University of Georgia, and at clinics under development in Savannah and Albany.

In January, the Board of Regents did not adopt the consultant's report, instead taking it under advisement. However, on Feb. 13, the board adopted a resolution embracing the plan to expand the Augusta campus, as well as in Athens, Savannah and Albany.