Hard Times Hit Georgia

The 1988 and 1989 legislative sessions were good to the University System of Georgia. An increasingly strong working relationship between lawmakers and public higher education officials had brought more attention to the System's needs and its role in Georgia's economic growth. The General Assembly's appropriations included sizeable increases in resident instruction at the 34 institutions, money for the Special Funding Initiatives and more-or-less full funding of the System's "Formula for Excellence."

Adding to the fairly rosy picture was a report published early in 1990 placing the System's statewide economic impact at approximately $3.25 billion and noting that only about a quarter of that amount comes from state appropriations. But the state's rate of employment growth had slipped drastically, and the regents could not help but notice that the System's share of the state budget was slowly but steadily decreasing. State lawmakers had ordered across-the-board "austerity" reductions for all state agencies. For the System, these cuts amounted to only $1.2 million in FY 1989 and $500,000 in FY 1990, but they heralded the hard times that were to come.

By 1990, the financial picture had worsened considerably. Although the System's formula was still being funded more or less in its entirety, the regents felt the configuration adopted in 1982 had grown inadequate for their needs. Plus, the board's efforts to boost faculty salaries had failed. They had requested funding to cover a 9 percent increase (a 7.5 percent merit increase, coupled with a 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment), only to receive enough to award a 4 percent increase, barely enough to keep pace with inflation, for the fourth consecutive year. The situation had taken its toll - the System had slipped from first to fifth place in faculty salaries among the 15 states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) since 1982.

The state's coffers were alarmingly depleted. In September, Gov. Joe Frank Harris was forced to order mid-year cuts to the budgets of 51 state agencies. The University System took the biggest hit - $31.4 million, or nearly 17 percent of the statewide cuts. Three months later, Governor-elect Zell Miller announced a second round of cuts. This time another 1 percent ($9.1 million) was slashed from the System's FY 1991 budget, and the carnage was not over. On June 30, 1991, the last day of the 1991 fiscal year, a last-minute reduction of $200,000 was made, bringing the total amount cut to $50.3 million. Even worse news was to come. By the time the board met in September, the FY 1992 budget had been reduced by $75 million and more than 1,000 positions had been lost, two-thirds of them staff positions. In November, Gov. Miller attended the regular meeting of the board - a rare occurrence - to offer reassurance.

Vowing to "put my money where my mouth is," Miller told the regents that he would support a major construction effort in the System and work to restore Georgia's faculty-salary ranking by securing bigger pay increases. He also promised to push for full formula funding after two years of budget cuts. Holding up an issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education noting Georgia's decline in higher-education spending over the past two years, Miller insisted he would see to it that the trend was reversed.

As Georgia slowly climbed out of its recession, things did begin to look better for the University System. There were no further budget cuts. Despite several efforts, the regents had yet to be successful in proposing revisions to the funding formula adopted in 1982, but Miller eventually did made good on his promise to elevate faculty salaries. Although raises had dipped to 3 percent in 1991 and 1.5 percent for faculty only in 1992, they rebounded to 6 percent in 1995 and stayed at that level for four consecutive years, allowing Georgia to reach second place in the SREB salary rankings.