Center for Economic Education Hosts Workshops for Teachers

The Berry College Center for Economic Education will close out its 2008-09 workshop schedule Feb. 10, 11 and 12 with a trio of offerings for area teachers.

On Feb. 10, the center will host “Georgia Economic History,” a one-day workshop for eighth-grade Georgia studies teachers. This award-winning program brings together an array of resources to help teachers lead their students in a study of their own local economic history. Teachers get hands-on experience with the tools of the historian and learn how to work with local history groups.

The Feb. 11 workshop, “Personal Finance,” focuses on how teachers in grades 6-12 can “coach” their students in the new personal finance curriculum, thus helping them to become skilled consumers, savers and investors.

The schedule concludes Feb. 12 with “Elementary School Economics, K-2.” This workshop focuses on basic economics content with a focus on learning the economics concepts found in the Georgia Performance Standards.

Teachers interested in attending these workshops should contact Dr. Leslie Marlow at lmarlow@berry.edu or 706-238-7889. Online registration is available at www.gcee.org/workshops/register_for_workshops.asp. Additional information about the center and its offerings can be found at www.berry.edu/academics/education/econed.

Established in 1974 under the leadership of Dr. Ouida Word Dickey, the Center for Economic Education is in its first year operating under the umbrella of Berry’s Charter School of Education and Human Sciences. Its goal is to provide teachers with a supportive network, access to professional training and curriculum materials. Area school administrators are welcome to contact the center staff to arrange special topic workshops and courses.

“We are delighted to have the Center for Economic Education housed in the Charter School,” said Dr. Jacqueline McDowell, Charter School dean. “I personally welcome every workshop participant and encourage them to send us high school students from their school districts who want to be teachers. The center helps us to recruit, prepare and inspire teachers to teach economics.”


Prepared by student writer Leigh Harris.

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GAE Members to Ask Obama for Piece of Stimulus Package for Georgia's Public Schools

The Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), realizing the urgency of the ongoing economic climate and its impact upon Georgia's families and public education system, has developed a plan to help Georgia obtain a piece of the economic stimulus package being proposed by the incoming Obama Administration. Its members will be asked to lobby their U.S Senators and Representatives on behalf of Georgia's families and public schools.

"Our students, our educators, and their respective families, like all Georgia citizens and their families, are living with the realities of today's economic difficulties," said GAE President Jeff Hubbard. "These difficulties, which are forecast to only worsen, will continue to have an impact upon our state's ability to fulfill its budgetary obligations, which will impact public education both directly and indirectly. Directly in the guise of k-12 through higher education line items that are being, and most likely will continue to be, reduced or possibly eliminated, and indirectly in other line items that affect Georgia's families abilities to obtain the basics they need, such as food stamps, nutrition assistance, and Medicaid, which can impact how well their children are prepared for school each day." Hubbard says that schools are seeing increasing numbers of children who are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced school meals or need donated school supplies because their families can no longer afford them.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 41 states, including Georgia, faced or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for this year and/or next year. Over half the states had already cut spending, used reserves, or raised revenues in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current fiscal year. At least 16 states are cutting or proposing to cut K-12 and early education; several of them are also reducing access to child care and early education, and at least 17 states have implemented or proposed cuts to public colleges and universities. Hubbard said, "In all six of Gov. Purdue's budgets, the actual amount of money allocated for per pupil expenditures has continued to shrink leading to massive cuts in services and programs which our students desperately need to be competitive in this new global economy."

To address these urgent needs, GAE members are being asked to lobby their U.S. Congressional representatives on the following points:

* Initiatives to help boost pre-k education, including a limited-time program of federal matching funds designed to help states maintain pre-k services, while creating incentives for them to maintain existing investment levels. We also suggest funding programs to ensure that job training and assistance programs provide displaced workers who want to become early educators, particularly those who already have college degrees, access to the education they need to teach PK-3 students.
* Job creation through investments in infrastructure, including school construction. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has pointed to more than $100 billion in needed repairs to U.S. public schools ¨C well-defined projects that can be quickly implemented. EPI estimates that $20 billion in such infrastructure repairs would create 280,000 jobs.
* An increase in the federal share of the costs of educating students with disabilities. The federal funding shortfall for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is straining state and school budgets and diverting resources from other critical programs. According to the National Governors Association, as a result of the subprime meltdown, the steady decline in housing values, and the rising costs of health care, state and local education budgets are under siege to cover basic operation costs, such as teacher salaries, transportation, and educational programming. Proposals to create a new glide path to attain the 40 percent federal commitment for special education cost about $19 billion over two years. This funding would go a long way to protecting elementary and secondary education from planned cuts over the next two years.
* Funding to close the Pell Grant shortfall. The credit crisis has made it more difficult for families to qualify for student loans and access higher education. At the same time, a large and growing number of people are going back to school as a way to increase their skills and earning potential. More than 786,000 applicants used the Pell Grant program than at the same point last year. As a result, the estimated Pell Grant shortfall is $3.5 billion in FY09, even after Congress provided $2.5 billion in the Continuing Resolution. At the current rate of increase, there will be 1.2 million more Pell Grant students. Congress could fund the Pell Grant shortfall and ensure adequate federal resources are available for all eligible students.
* Increases in food stamp benefits and other nutrition assistance for families struggling to survive in the face of rapidly rising food prices. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, food stamp caseloads have increased dramatically in recent months, rising by 2.6 million people or 9.6 percent between August 2007 and August 2008, the latest month for which data are available. In 25 states, at least one in every five children is receiving food stamps.
* An extension of unemployment assistance to those who have exhausted their benefits.
* A temporary increase in the federal Medicaid match (FMAP). According to the National Governors Association, 17 states have experienced FMAP declines over their federal FY 2008 FMAPs. Twelve of these states had also experienced FMAP declines in the previous fiscal year. Fourteen states are projected to have FMAP decreases in federal FY 2010. A temporary FMAP increase is a proven, effective way to provide relief to states and protect the health care of millions of Americans. In fact, Congress used this same approach to help states during the 2001-02 recession, when states facing high unemployment and weak tax revenues, combined with unexpected Medicaid growth, were forced to seek serious cutbacks in Medicaid costs.

"We invite all concerned Georgians to join us and contact their U.S. Congressional Delegation and ask that Georgia be included in any recovery package being developed," said Hubbard. "We also would implore our Georgia lawmakers to fairly and equitably distribute any additional funding that is successfully obtained, whether it is through federal stimulus or increased state tax revenue."

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University of Georgia Budget Update

University of Georgia Budget Update
President Michael F. Adams

I would like to begin my comments on the budget situation with words of praise for the people who have spent countless hours working to ensure the long-term financial stability of the University of Georgia. The credit for our careful management of the budget crisis to date goes to the many faculty and staff who have taken on extra responsibility in areas where there are unfilled positions. The credit also goes to the leadership team in the budget area: Arnett Mace; Tom Landrum; and Tim Burgess, with the help of the many dedicated staff in Finance and Administration; and of course the deans, vice presidents, directors, and department heads who face the greatest challenge of managing these budget reductions at the school, college, and departmental levels.

We are facing an economic crisis of a magnitude unprecedented since WWII. My belief has been that we must manage very conservatively during these times, doing all that we can to preserve faculty and staff jobs—which remains my top priority—so that we can continue to carry out our missions of teaching, research and service. To date, we have been able to avoid the worst of this economic recession because of the planning by our budget team that began about this time last year. But we do not yet know how much the fiscal year 2009 budget ultimately will be cut and what the funding levels will look like for 2010.

As you will recall, at their October meeting the Board of Regents directed that we reduce our FY 09 budget by 6%. This action led to a reduction to UGA's state-appropriated funds of over $29.7 million, with $24 million being reduced from our Resident Instruction budget and $5.7 million from our B Units, the experiment station and extension units that extend our research and outreach missions throughout the state.

Although the University System has not received specific budget instructions from the state regarding further budget reductions, the Board of Regents yesterday took prudent action to prepare for a likely budget reduction of 8%. Increasing the FY 2009 budget reduction to 8% would increase the reduction to UGA's state-appropriated funds from $29.7 million to about $39.7 million, with $32.1 million being reduced from our Resident Instruction budget and $7.6 million from our B Units.

Given the budget challenges facing all public colleges and universities in Georgia, the Board of Regents took the following three actions yesterday in a special called meeting.

First, the Regents voted to reduce the employer contribution rate for the PPO and HMO health insurance plans from 75% to 70%. This action increases the employee cost for these and the Indemnity health plans, if the employee does not opt to move to a lower-cost plan. Importantly, the open enrollment period has been reopened until December 15th to allow faculty, staff, and retirees to make different choices should they wish to do so, in light of the change in premiums.

Second, the Regents voted to waive BOR policy 704.021 on mandatory student fee. This is the policy that outlines the standard timetable and procedures by which mandatory fees are typically set by the Board of Regents, usually in April.

Third, they voted to institute a mandatory fee of $100 per semester at research universities and the largest comprehensive universities, $75 at the other comprehensive universities, and $50 at access institutions.

Each of these actions is part of a tiered approach that has been followed over several months by the System to address the changing budget situation. I would like to speak to these items in more detail.

First, the health care action. As UGA faculty and staff will receive the merit salary increases approved for January 1, 2009, these raises will help mitigate the health insurance cost increases that System employees are being asked to bear. At UGA, we have made concerted attempts to address salary concerns in specific targeted areas over the past months and years. As of January 1, 2009, we will have been able to move the minimum salary to $21,000 after steady steps in that direction over several years. Along with raising the minimum salary, we also allocated funds to mitigate staff salary compression issues that are associated with raising the minimum hiring rate. Likewise, we have allocated over $1.8 million additional funds in this fiscal year alone to help bring faculty salaries more in line with our competitors, with $1.3 million of this funding being targeted at the associate professor level. This is the fourth year that we have allocated funds to supplement the merit salary increase pool. In addition to these targeted salary increase allocations, we also provided funds to add an additional ½% to the 2.5% merit pool provided by the state to ensure that all faculty and staff are receiving a minimum ½% salary increase to help mitigate the impact of the growing cost and inflationary pressures that are confronting all of us.

Such efforts would not have been possible without a shared commitment to these efforts among the senior leadership team, and the belief that such actions were important to the future of the institution. It is not easy to watch progress in salaries diluted by the very real pressures of this economic recession, but the Chancellor and the Board of Regents have been clear in indicating that at this stage of budget reductions, all employees have a role to play in helping address the budget crisis.

While other state agencies and other universities outside of Georgia are taking steps to furlough employees, furloughs are not being considered for University System employees at this time. We are also not yet taking steps towards hard layoffs across the University for full-time positions. However, the pain of the current level of cuts has already had a direct effect on positions. Vacancies are not being filled, and some part-time contracts have not been renewed that would otherwise have been renewed in better times. This is real pain, and real function being lost at this institution.

In total, the budget reductions are forcing UGA to defer filling 167 faculty positions, 183 staff positions, 47 graduate assistant positions, and 52 student worker positions across the institution. These vacancies translate to class sections that are not offered, student course needs that go unmet, and programs that are canceled.

Second, the issue of the Special Spring Semester ‘09 fee. The action taken by the board places a mandatory fee of $100 at the research universities, $75 at the comprehensive universities, and $50 at the access institutions for Spring 2009 in order to sustain academic quality. The Board will, in the normal course of business, set fees for the next fiscal year in April. The Board of Regents will make decisions about tuition and fees for fiscal year 2010 at that time.

Just as employees are being asked to help significantly in these challenging budget times, students are being asked to step up and help to ensure that the academic quality of this institution remains strong. We will continue to do everything possible to achieve greater efficiency in our operations so that we retain as much flexibility as possible in meeting our academic mission.

I have said before that I believe UGA’s tuition is too low; one has only to look at tuition at the other states in the Southern region to see this underscored. The $4,395 in tuition that UGA is assessing to in-state undergraduates (Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 semesters) is $1,033 below the median of $5,428 and $1,412 below the average of $5,807 for tuition being assessed by UGA's peers in the Southern region. The national discrepancies are even larger. As recently as last week, the governor of Florida, one state whose tuition has historically been lower than ours, announced his support for tuition increases of up to 15% to help struggling public colleges and universities.

In taking this action to implement a mandatory fee midyear, the Chancellor and the Regents have acknowledged that maintenance of academic programs depends upon such funds. Georgia’s students receive an excellent education at UGA, and as much as I regret increases, I do believe that they are justified to ensure that we can continue to provide appropriate academic offerings to our students that are of the quality that our students demand and deserve and that the state expects from its flagship institution.

Please understand that this is December 4th, and there is still a possibility that the budget reduction will go higher than 8%. This is a fluid, ever-changing situation, and we do not yet know how Georgia will fare in the coming months. I also want to be forthright in saying that we do not yet know the prospects for a pay raise in 2010, but I believe it to be slim. We will continue to work closely with the System officials and with our legislative leadership in our planning as we move through these challenging times.

Like almost every higher education institution in the nation, we are facing the challenges of a national economic downturn. Our neighboring states have these same issues. For my part, I remain grateful that UGA is located in Athens, with its strong sense of community and its good quality of life, for I think in difficult economic times such factors become increasingly important.

While we do not know the economic course of the next several months, we will continue to keep the campus informed of additional actions that impact our budget. I remain confident that the day-to-day work that we do to serve students as well as the citizens of Georgia is the best means to provide a bright future for this state. This institution has faced many difficult times in its 223-year history and has survived, each time to grow to a stronger and more expansive level of service. I am confident we will do so again and that there will be improvement in the next 12-18 months. I am truly grateful to all of our faculty, staff, and students for their shared sense of commitment to the University and its academic programs.

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