Georgia regents order 6 furlough days

ATLANTA --- Professors and staff at Georgia's public colleges will be joining the rest of state employees in taking some unpaid days off.

On Wednesday, the board overseeing the University System of Georgia approved six days of furloughs, along with changes in health insurance and other staff recommendations for budget cuts. At the same time, it requested a budget increase and money for putting up buildings in the next fiscal year.

The Board of Regents responded to Gov. Sonny Perdue's request for three days of furloughs by doubling the number while exempting more than 3,200 workers who make less than $23,000 a year. And to his request that all state agencies submit an outline for cutting their budgets by 4, 6 and 8 percent, the board approved plans submitted by the presidents of the 35 public colleges and by the Atlanta staff of the University System.

Regent Ken Bernard, of Douglasville, wants to make sure Mr. Perdue gets a detailed explanation of how the cuts will affect the system.

"I want them to know what we are biting off," he said.

The three spending-reduction plans had to be approved in concept and forwarded to Mr. Perdue, but they won't be implemented until he gives his OK. In the meantime, he has ordered 5 percent of state appropriations withheld from the University System and all agencies because of slumping tax collections, which dropped an additional 9.6 percent last month.

Each college president will decide how to cut spending on individual campuses, but the regents made some systemwide changes by altering some employee benefits starting in January.

One step was to eliminate the indemnity health-insurance plan and shift premiums to encourage all workers to sign up for the high-deductible preferred-provider organization plan. To sweeten the deal, the regents agreed to kick in one-quarter of the annual deductible this fiscal year and one-quarter the next.

"We're going to seek to maintain quality," University System Chancellor Erroll Davis said. "We're getting better at managing these reductions. We're in the process of training people in how to take costs out of systems without ruining the quality of life.

"We can't just postpone travel, postpone training -- that's like eating your children. It does not assure your future. We have to make structural changes."

At the same time colleges are tightening budgets, enrollment is growing. That growth pushes up the money the University System is due under the funding formula the Legislature set years ago. So the regents voted to request an appropriation boost of $141 million

A separate request of $276 million from bond-based borrowing would go to constructing 17 buildings and designing 11 more. Even though the state budget for daily operations is shrinking, building projects are funded by borrowing through the sale of bonds, which the state can issue at low interest rates during the recession.

Approved projects include $1.8 million to expand the Wrightsboro site at Augusta State University, $1.5 million to equip the health-sciences building at College of Coastal Georgia, $3.3 million to equip the special-collections library at the University of Georgia, $14.3 million to build a library addition at Armstrong Atlantic State University, and the money for designs includes $900,000 for a health center at Armstrong and $3.2 million for the science learning center at UGA.

The Georgia Public Library Service is attached to the University System, and the regents agreed to request $31 million more in bond-funded borrowing to construct 18 libraries, including $1.5 million for the Madison County Library and $2 million for the Islands Branch Library in Savannah.