ATLANTA – The University System Board of Regents Thursday selected a top administrator at Georgia Washington University in the nation’s capital sole finalist for president of Georgia State University.
Subject to a final board vote, M. Brian Blake will succeed outgoing Georgia State President Mark Becker next month. Becker is leaving after a dozen years at the helm of what has become Georgia’s largest university.
Blake, a native Georgian, is now serving as president for academic affairs and provost at George Washington, a private university with an enrollment of 28,000 students. He also is a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering.
“Dr. M. Brian Blake’s experience as a leader in higher education makes him an outstanding candidate to lead one of the nation’s top universities for innovation in student success,” university system Chancellor Steve Wrigley said.
“Georgia State University has set a national standard for helping students of all backgrounds attain their degrees while achieving records through strong financial management and faculty research. Its next president should build on those successes.”
While overseeing 10 schools and colleges on three campuses at George Washington, Blake also spearheaded the university’s post-pandemic strategy, which offered an opportunity to assess innovative teaching methods and course offerings.
“Dr. Blake has the skills to lead USG’s largest institution while setting high expectations and supporting the needs and growth of students, faculty, staff and alumni,” said Sachin Shailendra, chairman of the Board of Regents. “He is an innovator who has held positions at some of the nation’s top institutions.”
Before coming to George Washington, Blake served as an administrator at Drexel University in Philadelphia and the University of Miami. He also was an associate dean at the University of Notre Dame.
Prior to his academic career, Blake worked as a software architect and developer with General Electric, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the MITRE Corp.
Under Becker’s leadership, Georgia State set records for enrollment, graduation rate and total graduates. The university’s consolidation with Georgia Perimeter College in 2016 made it the state’s largest university and one of the largest in the nation with more than 54,000 students.
In other business Thursday, the Board of Regents confirmed T. Ramon Stuart as president of Clayton State University effective July 1. Stuart was named sole finalist for the post last week.
The Savannah Convention Center expansion is receiving $90 million in state bond funding this year.
ATLANTA – The state agency in charge of bond sales Wednesday approved the sale of nearly $1.1 billion in general obligation bonds to finance a variety of building projects.
The Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission acted two weeks after the three main credit rating agencies renewed the state’s AAA credit rating, allowing favorable interest rates that will save tax money.
“This bond sale allows us to build and update various infrastructure projects and create good-paying jobs for hardworking Georgians across the state,” Gov. Brian Kemp said in a prepared statement.
“Due to low interest rates here in the Peach State, we will be saving taxpayers dollars for years to come while also ensuring Georgia continues to lead the nation in economic recovery.”
The bonds were sold on a competitive basis through four different bids with investors showing high demand for them. The overall interest rate for the bonds was 1.74%, the second-lowest ever for an issue of the state’s general obligation bonds.
“We are extremely pleased with the bids we received,” said Diana Pope, director of the commission’s Financing and Investment Division. “As we approached the sale date, the bond market was demonstrating a lot of strength, but it proved to be even stronger than we were expecting.”
The largest portion of the funding provides $304.7 million for K-12 school construction projects. Another $250.9 million will go toward building projects on University System of Georgia campuses.
Public safety-related agencies will receive almost $156 million for buildings and equipment, and $112.9 million is earmarked for the Technical College System of Georgia. The state Department of Transportation will put $112.5 million toward road, bridge and rail projects.
The expansion of the Savannah Convention Center will get $90 million, the largest single project to benefit from the new bonds. The state kicked in $70 million toward the $271 million project last year.
The expansion, which broke ground in March, will double the current exhibit hall space to 200,000 square feet and include a 58-foot-wide hangar door, a 40,000-square-foot ballroom, 15 additional meeting rooms, and a 900-space on-site parking garage.
The CMA CGM Marco Polo, the largest ship ever to call at the Port of Savannah, arrived May 26. Photo credit: Savannah Morning News
ATLANTA – The Port of Savannah is experiencing strong year-over-year growth despite the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Savannah handled 478,620 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo last month, an increase of 41.9% over May of last year, making it the second-busiest month in its history. The port has posted 10 consecutive months of positive year-over-year growth.
The strong numbers came as a surprise to officials at the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA).
“Last year, at this time, we were uncertain of the road ahead and expecting a double-digit loss in business,” said Will McKnight, the authority’s board chairman.
“To see how the GPA team and our supply chain partners have turned things around to achieve a string of the most successful months ever speaks volumes for this world-class workforce.”
With one month remaining in fiscal 2021, the Port of Savannah is on pace to surpass 5 million TEUs for the first time.
Total cargo crossing all GPA docks reached 3.8 million tons last month, up 26 percent. Rail volumes for the month grew 28 percent to a total of 54,436 containers.
A factor in the Port of Savannah’s growth is that increasingly large container ships are calling at the port’s Garden City Terminal. Two weeks ago, the port welcomed the largest vessel ever to call at Savannah, the CMA CGM Marco Polo.
“We believe managing the new cargo that’s coming our way benefits the economy, jumpstarts economic development and sustains long-term growth,” said Griff Lynch, the authority’s executive director.
To keep pace with the growth, the GPA has accelerated its hiring efforts by adding nearly 150 employees since January.
Strong growth also is occurring at the Port of Brunswick, which slumped during the pandemic because of the economic hit the auto industry took. The authority’s trade in vehicles and machinery units soared by 347% in May to 62,873 units.
“We expect strong growth to continue in autos and machinery as manufacturers return to normal operations,” Lynch said.
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is putting his entire stock portfolio into a blind trust, the first-year senator announced Wednesday, fulfilling a campaign promise.
Stock holdings by members of Congress became an issue early last year when the Justice Department began investigating stock transactions then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and two Senate colleagues made following a closed-door briefing during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Loeffler said the transactions were made by a third-party advisor without her input, and the Justice Department later dropped the investigation without finding any wrongdoing.
However, Loeffler later liquidated her holdings in individual stocks and converted those assets into broader exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, a step she said she took to end a distraction over false allegations.
In putting his stock holdings into a blind trust, Ossoff said he’s following an example set by former Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.
“Georgians deserve confidence that elected representatives are serving the people and not themselves,” Ossoff said. “I will continue to work in the Senate to strengthen ethics rules.”
Ethics and good government groups have pointed to blind trusts as a way to increase Americans’ faith in government by ensuring members of Congress avoid conflicts of interest and cannot trade on inside information.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose dramatically in May for the second straight month, a trend due not so much to a boost in economic productivity but to changes in the filing schedule.
The state Department of Revenue brought in $2.66 billion in tax revenue last month, a 68.1% increase over May of last year. That followed a $52.4% rise in tax receipts in April compared to April 2020.
Year-over-year comparisons of state tax collections for the spring quarter of April, May and June are less meaningful than usual because the IRS postponed last year’s filing deadline to July 15and put back this year’s deadline to May 17. The agency also cited the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Individual income tax revenues were up 82.7% in May compared to the same month last year, driven in large part by an astronomical increase of 2,030.7% in tax return payments compared to last May, when the pandemic was at its height.
Net sales taxes for the month rose by 46.2%, another sign of increased economic activity last month compared to May 2020.
With businesses back to nearly normal operations, corporate income taxes more than doubled to $51.2 million, up from $24.5 million in May of last year.
Another big winner was motor fuel tax revenue, which soared last month by 49.7% over May 2020, when fuel purchases were depressed by the pandemic-driven economic slowdown.
A more useful comparison of year-over-year tax receipts will be available next month when the full report for fiscal 2021 is released.
