For better or worse, for richer or poorer, the Georgia Archives is on its way to being wed to the University System of Georgia.
The full Georgia Senate Thursday approved House Bill 287 transferring the Archives from the Secretary of State to the University System of Georgia. All that is needed to make the transfer official is the governor’s signature.
The full Senate is expected to vote on the budget on Friday.
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed
Now is the time for all good Georgians to come to the aid of the Archives.
The legislature is in recess until Wednesday, March 20. During the recess the Senate will be formulating the budget.
Please take time to call the Senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Ask that the full amount — $448,266 — requested by Chancellor Hank Huckaby be added to the Senate version of the budget.
Senate Appropriations Committee Members
Jack Hill Renee Unterman Tim Golden
Don Balfour Buddy Carter Ronnie Chance
Bill Cowsert John Crosby Gail Davenport
Vincent Fort Steve Gooch Bill Heath
Judson Hill Bill Jackson Butch Miller
Jeff Mullis Jack Murphy Valencia Seay
David Shafer Freddie Powell Sims Cecil Staton
Horacena Tate Curt Thompson Steve Thompson
Lindsey Tippins Ross Tolleson John Wilkinson
Tommie Williams
Note: Sens. Carter, Chance, Cowsert, Davenport and Staton make up the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee.
Contact information can be found here:
http://www.senate.ga.gov/committees/en-US/committee.aspx?Committee=103&Session=23
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
The closer it gets to the end of the legislative session the faster things move.
Before most people had had their first cup of coffee on Monday, one House of Representatives committee had met and approved a budget for the Georgia Archives. A second committee approved the budget Monday afternoon.
The House Appropriations Higher Education Subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee agreed on a figure of $224,113 in addition to the $3,851,428 recommended by the governor. The additional amount is roughly half of what University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby recommended.
There is only one more step for any Archives legislation in the House of Representatives: approval of the budget by the full House.
The Senate will take up both the budget and House Bill 287 (the transfer bill) in the coming days.
The Senate will discuss House Bill 287 on Wednesday, March 13 at 3 p.m.
Preliminary meetings on the Senate’s version of the budget already are underway by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
The Senate, in its version of the budget, could recommend more than the House. As always, the budget will go to a House-Senate Conference Committee in order to development a budget both houses can support.
At this point, the only way to get more money for the Archives is to convince members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to recommend the full $448,266 that Chancellor Huckaby requested.
To all of those who wrote or called over the weekend or on Monday: your voices were heard. To all of those who have voiced support for the Archives over the last few months: you are making a difference.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Terry England said in his presentation of the budget on Monday that he had heard from “many, many, many” Archives supporters. No other budget issue rated such a comment from the chairman.
Keep up the great work.
Below is a list of Senate committee members:
Senate Appropriations Committee Members
Jack Hill Renee Unterman Tim Golden
Don Balfour Buddy Carter Ronnie Chance
Bill Cowsert John Crosby Gail Davenport
Vincent Fort Steve Gooch Bill Heath
Judson Hill Bill Jackson Butch Miller
Jeff Mullis Jack Murphy Valencia Seay
David Shafer Freddie Powell Sims Cecil Staton
Horacena Tate Curt Thompson Steve Thompson
Lindsey Tippins Ross Tolleson John Wilkinson
Tommie Williams
Note: Sens. Carter, Chance, Cowsert, Davenport and Staton make up the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee.
Contact information can be found here:
http://www.senate.ga.gov/committees/en-US/committee.aspx?Committee=103&Session=23
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
House Bill 287 — the bill transferring the Georgia Archives to the University System of Georgia — has been assigned to the Senate Higher Education Committee.
The bill can be found here:
This will be the last opportunity the public has for input into this legislation. If there is anything you would like to tell the Senators, these are the folks to contact:
Committee Members
Bill Cowsert, Chairman
Joshua McKoon, Vice Chairman
Burt Jones, Secretary
Buddy Carter, Member
Hardie Davis, Member
Tim Golden, Member
Lester G. Jackson, Member
Nan Orrock, Member
Cecil Staton, Member
Contact information can be found here:
http://www.senate.ga.gov/committees/en-US/committee.aspx?Committee=77&Session=23
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
After being postponed for more than a week, House Bill 287 has passed the full state House of Representatives.
The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration.
HB287 transfers the Georgia Archives from the Secretary of State to the University System of Georgia as of the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1.
The House Appropriations Committee seriously gets down to business on the budget in the final 10 legislative days, as well as on days when the full House is not in session. (There are several recess days scheduled).
Gov. Nathan Deal recommended $3,851,428 for the Archives for Fiscal Year 2014. Subtracting the “lease” (bond) payment on the Archives building, this budget leaves about $1 million to operate the Archives for an entire year. This won’t do.
USG Chancellor Hank Huckaby is asking for an additional $448,266, for a total of $4,299,694. This is a fair amount. Last fall, Gov. Deal mandated that all state agencies cut three percent from their budgets. Secretary of State Brian Kemp cut $730,000 (intended as the total cut for all of his divisions). Adding the Chancellor’s recommendation brings the Archives back to the governor’s 3% mandated cut, the same as every other agency has had to take.
The Chancellor’s $448,266 also is a reasonable request, an amount that is neither greedy nor impossible.
It is very important that all Archives supporters immediately contact all members of the full House Appropriations Committee in support of a larger budget than the one recommended by the governor. Members of the committee can be found here:
http://www.house.ga.gov/Committees/en-US/committee.aspx?Committee=88&Session=23
Thanks to all of you who have worked and continued to work to support the Archives.
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
Due to scheduling issues, the Georgia House postponed its vote on House Bill 287 to Wednesday, Feb. 27.
The bill will transfer the Georgia Archives and the Georgia Records Center from the Secretary of State to the University System of Georgia.
Filed under Get Informed
House Bill 287, transferring the Georgia Archives from the Secretary of State to the University System of Georgia, has passed all House committees and is expected to be approved by the full Georgia House of Representatives on Tuesday, Feb. 26.
The bill also is expected to pass the Senate.
In the meantime, the struggle for state dollars continues.
The Fiscal Year 2013 Supplemental Budget is headed to a House-Senate conference committee. It is unlikely that additional funds will be allocated to the Archives.
USG Chancellor Hank Huckaby has recommended that the legislature add $448,266 to the Archives budget for Fiscal Year 2014. Gov. Nathan Deal recommended $3,851,428. A total of $4,299,694 would:
The 2013 legislative session is more than half completed. If you support the Georgia Archives, the time to act is now. Contact your state legislator, as well as members of the House and Senate Higher Education Appropriations subcommittees and the full House and Senate Appropriations Committee members.
Chairmen of these committees are as follows:
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby today recommended that the Georgia Archives receive $448,266 in additional funding in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.
Last month Gov. Nathan Deal recommended that the Archives receive $3,851,428, a 13 percent cut from the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.
In a presentation to the Georgia House of Representatives Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, USG Chancellor Huckaby recommended a total budget of $4,299,694, a three percent cut from 2013.
The figure would cover the cost of adding seven positions and opening to the public four days per week.
The budget request must clear several more hurdles before it becomes reality. The budget must be approved by the House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee and the full House Appropriations Committee, as well as the state Senate.
Archives supporters are urged to contact the following members of the House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee:
Chairman Earl Ehrhart, Mike Cheokas, Alex Atwood, Paul Battles, Jon Burns, Rich Golick, Sheila Jones, Randy Nix, Tom Rice, Carl Rogers, Richard H. Smith, Calvin Smyre, Chuck Williams and John P. Yates.
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
Filed under Get Informed
“The rest, as they say, is history.”
We hear this statement regularly in every facet of life.
It is a popular phrase, designed to reduce, for the sake of brevity, the relatively recent past to seven words. The inference is that the story is too recent to bear reciting. Since it happened relatively recently, we, in our infinite humanity, figure we will remember without effort.
But, the recent past quickly becomes the distant past. Years flash by, and memories fade. Stories handed down through generations, like the old telephone game, are misremembered resulting in tangled distortions.
If such anomalies can occur in family histories over, say, three or four generations, just think what could happen if we had only oral history to rely on for the history of the state of Georgia.
Tuesday, Feb. 12 will mark 280 years since Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe escorted 114 men, women and children to Yamacraw Bluff, about 20 miles from the mouth of the Savannah River. The contingent had been at sea for more than two months. They had stopped in Charleston while Oglethorpe and soldiers found a place for them to settle in what would become the 13th colony.
What happened to those 114 souls? What hardships did they endure? What kind of government, industries and social structure did they develop?
The questions about Georgia’s rich history literally are endless.
Who was Button Gwinnett? What role did Georgia play in the American Revolution? What was the Yazoo Land Fraud? The convict lease system? What happened to the women who worked in the Roswell Mill?
How did Leo Frank die? What did the governor’s mansion look like in 1932? What did the legislature do in 1955? For what is Alonzo Herndon famous? What crops did your great grandpa grow on his farm in Early County?
How in the world did Georgia get 159 counties?
Of course, you could check any of several online sources, but the information generally is relatively superficial and the source documentation often non-existent. If you wanted to know the whole story, the real story, to see the actual documents, you’d go to the Georgia Archives.
Funding for the Archives has been dwindling for several years. If we don’t take the time to care today, how will future generations learn about what happened in the past?
So the next time you hear the phrase, “and the rest is history,” remember the Georgia Archives. The Archives exists for “the rest,” to be the collective memory of the state of Georgia and its people.
Take time to wish the State of Georgia a Happy Birthday and to tell your state legislature how important the Archives is to you and your fellow Georgians.
Vivian Price Saffold
Filed under Get Informed, What You Can Do
GeorgiaArchivesMatters 