Local & State Headlines

Perdue cuts water center's funding

• The governor's proposal kills state funding of an Albany water center.

Dave Williams

ATLANTA — What has become an annual fight for funding for the Georgia Water Policy and Planning Center at Albany State University is under way again in the General Assembly.

The 2009 budget submitted to lawmakers last week by Gov. Sonny Perdue would eliminate all state funds for the center, representing a loss of $360,000.

While the center gets some federal funding, it probably will be forced to shut down unless the Legislature restores the state money, said Doug Wilson, the center’s executive director.

“Congressman Bishop and others have been very supportive,” Wilson said. “But it’s probably going to be necessary for the state to provide support.”

The center, which also operates out of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, already is running on fumes.

After the governor didn’t put any money in his 2008 budget for the center, members of the House from Southwest Georgia went to work and convinced their colleagues to earmark $800,000.

But that was cut substantially by the Senate, and the center ended up with only $180,000 in the final version of the budget. And to make matters worse for the Albany site, all of those funds went to the Georgia Southern location.

Perdue first moved against the center in the summer of 2005 when the state launched an audit against both the center and the Flint River Regional Council, a nonprofit group that conducts research on agricultural water use in Southwest Georgia.

The audit, released that December, charged the two agencies with improper spending of tax money on travel and entertainment involving thousands of dollars in expenditures for lodging, food and parties.

Perdue responded by cutting more than $540,000 that had been allocated for the center.

The House put the center’s money back into the budget last year after supporters argued that it had cleaned up its operation since the audit.

Responding to the latest attempt by Perdue to yank the funds, Rep. Bob Hanner, D-Parrott, said the center’s research capabilities are particularly critical now to the water planning process that was launched with last week’s passage of Georgia’s first water management plan.

“We need all the information we can get about water,” he said. “They’ve certainly been a good source of information.”

But Marshall Guest, a spokesman for the governor, noted that the new plan is statewide in scope. He said Perdue wants to focus the state government’s resources on statewide water planning.

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