Submitted by Sammy Smith (sammy@thesga.org)

It’s budgeting time (late February, 2012) for the State of Georgia, and once again the budget of the Historic Preservation Division (HPD), which includes the Office of the State Archaeologist and more, is threatened with debilitating cuts. HPD is part of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

This means it is time for each SGA member to contact his or here state representative NOW. Ask your representative to restore monies to the HPD budget.

Here’s what’s happening, summarized by Mark C. McDonald, President and CEO of The Georgia Trust:

The budget process in the Georgia General Assembly has reached a critical point. House appropriators are meeting now in order to develop a fiscal year 2013 draft budget. Your efforts are desperately needed to restore $240,150 to the Georgia Historic Preservation Division (HPD) budget.

The proposed reduction is based on a deeply flawed zero based budget analysis and associated documents that specifically identified the Georgia African American Heritage Preservation Network (GAAHPN) for elimination. Because of the flawed analysis, however, the proposed reduction will go far beyond GAAHPN and will cripple HPD’s economic development and community stabilization efforts executed through its tax rehabilitation, Certified Local Government, and federally mandated Section 106 project reviews.

If you don’t know who your representative is, click here for district maps outside the Atlanta metro area, and here for the Atlanta metro area. For contact information once you know your representative’s name, click here.

HPD needs an adequate budget to take care of archaeology in our state. SGA members need to help HPD NOW.

Posted online on Saturday, February 25th, 2012