University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley
ATLANTA – University System of Georgia (USG) students being forced to take classes online this semester because of the coronavirus pandemic got some welcome news Thursday.
The system’s Board of Regents is expected to vote next week to hold the line on tuition during the coming school year, based on the recommendation of Chancellor Steve Wrigley.
“One of the University System of Georgia’s top priorities is affordability, and that has never been more important than now for our students and their families,” Wrigley said Thursday. “It is more critical than ever for our institutions to provide a quality education while maintaining the affordability and accessibility that helps more Georgians attain a college degree and find success in the workforce.”
Tuition at the system’s 26 colleges and universities went up 2.5% last August for the current school year. But if the regents approve Wrigley’s recommendation next week, it will mark the third time in the last five years there has been no tuition increase.
Overall, tuition during the last five years would have risen just 0.9%.
University system officials frequently tout Georgia’s public colleges and universities as one of the best financial deals in the South. Among the 16 states that make up the Southern Regional Education Board, Georgia charges the fourth lowest in-state tuition and fees for undergraduates at four-year institutions.
“USG continues to do all we can to ensure the cost of our colleges and universities remains among the lowest of our peers,” said Regent Sachin Shailendra, the board’s chairman. “I support the recommendation of Chancellor Wrigley and know that the board will support and approve it at our meeting on Tuesday.”
Wrigley is proposing a small number of fee increases for the coming school year. Those will be limited to debt payments or contractual obligations, according to a news release.
ATLANTA – Nearly 400,000 Georgians filed unemployment claims last week, more than three times the claims filed the week before and more than were filed during all of last year, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
The 390,132 claims the state agency processed during the week of March 29 through April 4 were part of the 6.6 million claims filed nationwide as job losses resulting from the coronavirus pandemic continued to climb. The national number remained about the same as the previous week.
Most of the new unemployment claims filed with the state were from the workers in the food service industry and other areas of the service sector.
The labor department paid out nearly $41.8 million in unemployment benefits to 168,319 Georgians last week.
“Thanks to [Gov. Brian Kemp] and his support of this agency, we have been able to automate much of this process by requiring employers to file on behalf of their employees, making this process much easier for Georgians to receive benefits,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said. “We are working daily to increase the efficiency of our systems and update our resources on our website to assist applicants with the process.”
Last week, the labor department processed 201,844 employer-filed claims, which are filed on behalf of employees who are temporarily laid off or have had their hours reduced. Employer-filed claims eliminate the labor-intensive employer verification needed for individually filed claims.
If filed with no errors, an employer-filed claim should take less than a week to pay the employee. An individual claim, with no errors, can take up to 21 days to process and pay the claimant.
Butler encouraged Georgians to visit the agency’s website at www.dol.georgia.gov to access applications, step-by-step instructions and video tutorials on applying for unemployment. He emphasized that with the huge volume of claims the agency is receiving, people need to use the online tools when possible.
For those individuals currently receiving state unemployment benefits, the labor department anticipates being able to start delivering the additional $600 supplement from the federal stimulus bill Congress passed last month beginning next week. The federal supplement will be an additional payment to regular weekly state unemployment benefits.
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia is poised to add a new advanced degree in cybersecurity.
The Board of Regents’ Academic Affairs Committee voted Thursday to establish a master’s degree program in cybersecurity and privacy at the University of Georgia. If approved by the full board next week, the program would take effect April 14.
The UGA program would focus on the privacy concerns that have accompanied the growth of the cybersecurity industry, Martha Venn, the university system’s deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs, told members of the committee during a meeting conducted by telephone.
Concerns over online privacy have been heightened during the coronavirus pandemic, as businesses and government agencies have become more reliant on communicating via the internet. For example, Google this week banned its employees from using the teleconferencing platform Zoom due to security concerns.
“We consider this a growing, emerging field,” Venn said. “We believe it will be a program that will attract a lot of students.”
UGA created its Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy in 2017 in large part to meet the needs of the new U.S. Army Cyber Command headquarters at Fort Gordon near Augusta, the National Security Agency, Georgia’s rapidly growing financial transaction processing industry and the electronic medical records industry.
The new masters program will help provide a workforce to meet the cybersecurity needs of Georgia businesses, military installations and government agencies.
The program will require 30 credit hours for completion and require full-time enrollment.
While the new UGA program would offer the university system’s first masters degree in cybersecurity with an emphasis on privacy, Georgia Tech and Columbus State University currently feature cybersecurity programs with a master of science option.
In other business Thursday, the committee approved the creation of a Parkinson’s research professorship in honor of former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. Isakson retired at the end of last year after 20 years in Congress due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.
The University of Georgia Foundation is funding the position with a donation of nearly $1 million.
The committee also voted to dedicate $2 million provided by the Georgia Tech Foundation to establish the John W. Young Chair to honor the late summa cum laude aerospace engineering graduate who became the ninth man to walk on the moon as the commander of Apollo 16.
Young flew six missions over four decades with NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. He died in 2018 at the age of 87.
Georgia Secretary of State is delaying the presidential and general to June 9, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Georgia’s primary election set for May 19 will be postponed three weeks to June 9 due to health and safety concerns over coronavirus, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Thursday.
The move came after Gov. Brian Kemp extended the state’s public health emergency status another month to May 13, a step Raffensperger said was legally necessary before the primary could be delayed.
“This decision allows our office and county election officials to continue to put in place contingency plans to ensure that voting can be safe and secure when in-person voting begins and prioritizes the health and safety of voters, county election officials and poll workers,” Raffensperger said in a statement Thursday.
Early voting for the primary now starts May 18. Voter registration will end May 11.
Raffensperger’s office is sending absentee ballot applications to every Georgia voter. Requests for mail-in ballots that have already been sent in will still be valid to receive an absentee ballot for the June 9 election, Raffensperger’s office said in a news release.
The June 9 primary is poised to be the first statewide test of Georgia’s new voting machines, which involve touchscreens and scanners that officials have hailed as a secure, paper-based voting process.
Without a delay, the primary election featuring presidential, state and local primary contests scheduled for May 19 faced a scenario in which many poll workers may not have shown up to staff voting precincts.
Poll workers on average tend to be older adults who are more at risk of harmful impacts from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that has sickened thousands of Georgians and killed hundreds.
On Thursday, Raffensperger said his office has fielded “reports of mounting difficulties” that county elections officials were struggling to have precincts ready in-person early voting set to begin April 27, ahead of a May 19 election.
The three-week delay gives state and county election officials more time to train poll workers, distribute cleaning supplies and draw backup plans for any possible issues.
“Just like our brave health-care workers and first responders, our county election officials and poll workers are undertaking work critical to our democracy, and they will continue to do this critical work with all the challenges that the current crisis has brought forth,” Raffensperger said.
It’s the second time the state’s presidential primary will be delayed after originally being set for March 24.
Raffensperger’s office indicated delaying it and the local primaries again would be tough, since holding the primaries past June 9 could conflict with federal law requiring certain deadlines for runoff results and ballot creation to be met for the Nov. 3 general election.
“I certainly realize that every difficulty will not be completely solved by the time in-person voting begins for the June 9 election, but elections must happen even in less than ideal circumstances,” Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger, a Republican, faced increasing pressure in recent weeks from influential Republican lawmakers including House Speaker David Ralston and all 11 of Georgia’s Republican congressional members to push back the primary to mid-June.
Until Thursday, Raffensperger said he would need the governor to extend the public health emergency beyond its original April 13 expiration date before he could delay the primary, though legislative counsel for the General Assembly disputed that legal interpretation.
Kemp signed an executive order Wednesday extending the emergency status through May 13, which Raffensperger said cleared the way for him to act.
Georgia Democratic leaders, meanwhile, had previously opposed a delay past May 19, arguing state officials should instead focus on bolstering absentee voting.
Raffensperger’s decision also followed an intense national backlash in Wisconsin, where a primary election was held Tuesday despite efforts from Wisconsin’s governor to delay it. News reports showed long lines of voters wearing face masks in the middle of the worst period of the coronavirus outbreak, sparking anguish over the potential health dangers and accusations of voter suppression.
Coronavirus has sickened thousands of people and killed hundreds in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday he plans to extend Georgia’s shelter-in-place order through the rest of April as coronavirus continues to spread and hit local hospitals hard.
The action will leave social and business restrictions that took effect last Friday in place through April 30. Georgia public schools and colleges remain closed for in-person classes for the rest of the school year.
Inside areas of restaurants, bars and other popular gathering spots are also closed. Grocery stores, pharmacies and restaurants providing delivery and take-out services can still operate. Kemp’s shelter-in-place order also gives businesses leeway to continue minimal operations to stay financially afloat.
Able to issue more extensions, Kemp did not have a hard date Wednesday for when the shelter-in-place order might ultimately end. At a news conference, he said that will depend on how well people keep their distance from each other and practice good sanitary habits.
“There is no playbook for this pandemic that we are facing in our state right now,” Kemp said. “But we will continue to use data, science and the advice of health-care officials to guide our steps toward a safer, healthier and more prosperous future in our state.”
As of noon Wednesday, roughly 9,000 people had tested positive in Georgia for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that has sparked a global pandemic. The virus had killed 362 Georgians.
Georgia is hustling to pump more supplies and bed space into local hospitals ahead of April 23, when models predict the state’s hospitals will see their highest surge of patients infected with coronavirus.
State officials are still tapping into the national stockpile of masks, gloves and ventilators while also buying shipments from private vendors, said Homer Bryson, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
Hospital leaders are combing their properties for unused space to set up more critical-care beds, Kemp said. On Thursday, health officials will start working with the private company Ipsum Diagnostics to boost the speed and number of coronavirus tests at Georgia’s public health labs.
Kemp said Wednesday he is authorizing 1,000 Georgia National Guard members to deploy in Georgia “to assist with the COVID-19 response.”
More than 100 National Guard members have been on duty since last week to boost disease-control measures in elderly care facilities, where the virus has already caused dozens of outbreaks among the state’s most vulnerable population.
Kemp said Wednesday he is also ordering new mandatory rules for elderly care facilities governing visitation, sanitation procedures, health screenings for employees and residents, wearing protective gear and isolating residents with symptoms.
On another topic related to the coronavirus pandemic, Kemp did not say Wednesday whether he would push Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to delay Georgia’s primary election, currently set for May 19. The governor said that decision is up to Raffensperger.
Raffensperger has said several times the governor must extend the state’s public health emergency before he can act on postponing the primary under state law, though legislative counsel for the General Assembly has disputed that legal interpretation. Kemp announced earlier Wednesday an extension of the emergency status through May 13, more than two weeks after early voting starts in late April.
Raffensperger’s office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on whether he is considering delaying the primary.
Meanwhile, new restrictions on church services could be on the way later this week, Kemp hinted. While most congregations have moved services online, Kemp noted local authorities have needed to disperse some church services since the shelter-in-place order took effect last week.
“I hope I don’t have to be in a position where I have to do that,” Kemp said Wednesday, referring to potentially ordering mandatory closures for in-person church services.
The governor is also poised to order a shutdown of vacation and short-term property rentals involving stays of 30 days or less, starting midnight Wednesday and lasting through April 30. The order will not include hotels or camping grounds and exempts short-term rentals that have already been purchased and booked before midday on April 9, Kemp said.
That move came in response to concerns over beaches remaining open under the statewide shelter-in-place order, Kemp acknowledged Wednesday. The governor pledged he would close beaches if attendance grows too high, but he said that has not happened so far.
“We know exactly how many people are on the beaches at all times of the day,” Kemp said.
