As reported in the Red & Black, on Jan. 11, the Georgia Board of Regents voted to merge Georgia Southern University and Armstrong State University along with Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and Bainbridge State College into two universities.

This is the fifth round of consolidations in the University System of Georgia since 2011, according to a press release from the University System of Georgia.

The Board of Regents approve each consolidation with the intention of “increasing opportunities to raise education attainment” and “enhancing regional development,” according to the Board’s six consolidation principles.

Board of Regents members and presidents of each university spoke with concerned residents in town hall meetings to clarify and answer questions regarding these changes.

Executive Vice Chancellor for Strategy and Fiscal Affairs Shelley Nickel said the first step requires the formation of a consolidation implementation committee of 20 people who will work on over 900 items covering issues such as financial aid, curriculum and degree programs.

The committee will work to first develop a new mission statement for the merger and the process will take about 18 months. The goal is to have students register for official, combined university classes in fall 2018.

“It will be a collaborative process, never losing sight of the human endeavor,” Georgia Southern President and future president of the combined universities Jaimie Hebert said.

Armstrong State University President Linda Bleicken agreed with Hebert but also understood the concerns of students.

“The manner in which the university system went about the merger makes me skeptical about who the merger will really benefit,” said Armstrong sophomore Josiah Byler.

Although many details remain unknown, including combination of Greek life and athletics according to the panel, they are certain hours will transfer, one billion dollars will attribute to the state economy and scholarships will not be affected.

The consolidation of these colleges intend for completion in 2018 as well, according to ABAC Director of Marketing and Communications Lindsey Roberts.

Similarly to the Georgia Southern and Armstrong consolidation, Roberts is not sure how the addition of their school to another will affect their academic programs and faculty employment .

Some students such as Cigi Fowler do not view the two schools merging as an issue.
“As long as I can still get my degree and not have to leave ABAC I’m happy,” Fowler said.
 

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Thousands of people lined the downtown Athens route of the community’s first Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday parade on Monday afternoon.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Mokah Jasmine Johnson, leader of the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, told the Athens Banner-Herald before the parade commenced on Hull Street and headed to Jackson Street, where the route returned to the center of downtown.

Johnson and her husband, Knowa, planned the event through the AADM and their event production company, United Group of Artists Live.

Dozens of marchers, a drumming unit, antique and classic cars and motorcycles assembled to celebrate the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968.

​Parade participants included marchers from the AADM, the Economic Justice Coalition, Rhema Christian Fellowship, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Athens-Oconee Court-Appointed Special Advocates, the Georgia Climate Change Coalition, Clarke County Democrats and Athens-Clarke County Mayor Nancy Denson.
 
Johnson said she hadn’t expected the inaugural parade to attract as many participants as it did.

Among the spectators was Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Melissa Link, who has noticed the lack of diversity in attendance at downtown Athens events.

“This is awesome, “It’s long overdue," Link said. "I feel like it’s happening.”

She hopes that participating in or watching Monday’s parade will inspire people to march for other causes.

That hope was also shared by Broderick Flanigan, a local artist who is part of a group of emerging black leaders in Athens.
 
 

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​
Thousands of people lined the downtown Athens route of the community’s first Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday parade on Monday afternoon.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Mokah Jasmine Johnson, leader of the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, told the Athens Banner-Herald before the parade commenced on Hull Street and headed to Jackson Street, where the route returned to the center of downtown.

Johnson and her husband, Knowa, planned the event through the AADM and their event production company, United Group of Artists Live. Dozens of marchers, a drumming unit, antique and classic cars and motorcycles assembled to celebrate the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968.

Parade participants included marchers from the AADM, the Economic Justice Coalition, Rhema Christian Fellowship, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Athens-Oconee Court-Appointed Special Advocates, the Georgia Climate Change Coalition, Clarke County Democrats and Athens-Clarke County Mayor Nancy Denson.

Johnson said she hadn’t expected the inaugural parade to attract as many participants as it did.

Among the spectators was Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Melissa Link, who has noticed the lack of diversity in attendance at downtown Athens events.

“This is awesome,” Link said. “It’s long overdue.” 

“I feel like it’s happening,” she said, and she hopes that participating in or watching Monday’s parade will inspire people to march for other causes.

That hope was also shared by Broderick Flanigan, a local artist who is part of a group of emerging black leaders in Athens.
 
 
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​An Athens-Clarke County Commission committee has been asked to examine ways to streamline a residential parking permit program focused on ensuring that on-street parking in neighborhoods where off-street parking is at a premium is available for people who actually live in the neighborhood.

​As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, earlier last week Mayor Nancy Denson assigned the parking issue to the commission’s Government Operations Committee due to a request from Commissioner Melissa Link, whose intown district is most susceptible to the pressures of non-residents parking on residential streets.

At Tuesday’s commission meeting, Link mentioned that the opening of the University of Georgia’s Health Sciences Campus in the Normaltown neighborhood has created parking pressures for residential streets as students and others using the campus have opted to use on-street parking instead of paying to park on the campus itself.

Similarly, patrons of businesses along nearby Prince Avenue, as well as patients and staff of various medical offices near Piedmont Athens Regional hospital, often park on neighborhood streets due to scarce parking elsewhere or to avoid parking charges.

The county’s residential parking permit program was initiated a few years ago aimed at neighborhoods in the Five Points area, where University of Georgia students would park their cars and then walk to campus to avoid on-campus parking fees. Eventually, the program expanded to other intown neighborhoods.

Currently, including a neighborhood in the residential parking permit program can be a tough process.

As an initial step, 30 percent of the property owners along a street who want to be considered for the program must express interest in the program to the county government. Then the traffic engineering division of the county’s Transportation & Public Works Department notifies the commissioner, or commissioners, who represent the neighborhood of the residents’ interest in the program.

At that point, a petition must be circulated to property owners in the neighborhood, and 65 percent of those owners must approve participation in the parking permit program. That 65 percent threshold must be met on each block within the proposed boundaries of a new residential parking permit program.

If 65 percent of property owners express support for participating in the residential parking permit program within a 30-day deadline, the Transportation & Public Works Department will prepare documentation for the mayor and commission to consider.

The final decision on whether or not to place a neighborhood in the residential parking program lies with the mayor and commission.

Once a neighborhood is approved for the program, property owners who pay a $10 fee are entitled to two “hang tags” for their vehicles to identify them as belonging to residents of the street. Temporary permits, for visitors to residents of the neighborhood, are available for $5.
 
The program restricts on-street parking to residents only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and neighborhoods participating in the program are identified by signs provided by the county.
Denson suggested Friday that a good solution might be a process that does not involve her or the commission at all.

“We might come up with some methodology for some sort of administrative procedure” rather than leaving the program at least partly in the political arena, Denson said.


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Georgia sells more lottery tickets per capita than any other state lottery but one, according to a state audit of the Georgia Lottery Corporation.

As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, a declining percentage of lottery revenues are going back to the education programs the lottery is required by law to fund, and the corporation that runs the lottery must reform its business practices, according to auditors in the Performance Audit Division of the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts.

Under the new law, the lottery was supposed to contribute about 35 percent of proceeds to education, but the figure hasn’t been that high since 1997, auditors found. In the 2016 fiscal year, 25.5 percent of lottery proceeds went back to the state for education programs.

Most of the money the state gets goes to fund two programs that benefit the HOPE college scholarship program and the statewide voluntary pre-kindergarten program.

But as lottery growth declined and many more students qualified for HOPE, legislators have cut the scholarship’s value and stiffened eligibility.

As a result, the HOPE covers a declining part of college costs for most recipients of the lottery-funded scholarships.

The amount of money the GLC transferred back to the state jumped from $945 million in the 2014 fiscal year to $981 million in 2015 and $1.1 billion in 2016, according to auditors in the department’s Performance Audit Division.

The lottery sold $1.1 billion in tickets the year after the first tickets went on sale June 29, 1993 and have nearly quadrupled since. Net ticket sales reached $4.3 billion in the 2016 fiscal year.

Of that $4.3 billion, $2.75 billion went out as prizes. Operating expenses accounted for $456 million, including $271 million in commissions to retailers. About $1.1 billion went back to the state’s education fund.

GLS’s second-largest expense administrative expense was about $100 million paid to contractors, mostly to two corporations, Scientific Games and International Game Technology, to design and run the lottery and its ever-changing games.

Since the contracts were first awarded in 2002, GLC has renegotiated contracts with each of the two companies three times, and each time, got a lower base rate — from about 1.3 percent of sales down to about .8 percent beginning in 2018.

In fiscal year 2016, International Games Technology’s base compensation was $48.4 million, and
Scientific Games’ base pay was $32.2 million.

GLC should periodically put the two huge contracts out for bid instead of periodically renegotiating contracts, the auditors said.

The GLC has no policies for how it handles large purchases of $75,000 or more, according to the audit report.

The GLC also paid out $30 million for advertising and $32 million for personnel salaries and benefits.
GLC also paid out $712,344 in employee bonuses in 2016, compared to $1.9 million in 2010, before
state lawmakers enacted limits on lottery employee bonuses.

The state auditors questioned the lottery corporation’s research in determining optimal prize payouts, and said GLC should also analyze how it’s spending advertising money.
Georgia spends more money on lottery advertising than any other state, they found.

The GLC needs a do-over on a 2013 study that said each 1 percent increase in payout rates would mean $13.5 million more in ticket sales. Most of the factors used in weighing the options weren’t statistically significant, they said.

​Georgia’s prize payout rate of 64.8 percent of proceeds is about average compared to other states, but much higher than in the beginning. Payouts were 51.6 percent of sales in the lottery’s first year. The state lottery law calls for “as near as practical” payouts of “at least” 45 percent.
 
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