The Board of Regents accepted Monday a report recommending an expansion of the Medical College of Georgia to Athens as a guide for future planning.

In Monday’s special called meeting, the regents adopted a plan by Pittsburgh-based consulting firm Tripp Umbach, which calls a partnership between MCG and the University a “key component” in avoiding a shortage of physicians in the state over the next several decades.

“It means that they are going to use it as a guiding document,” said University Vice President for Public Affairs Tom Jackson.

“The need for both medical manpower and economic development requires that MCG continue to formalize its partnership with the University of Georgia to develop initial facilities on the Athens campus,” reads the report, which regents saw for the first time Jan. 15.

The plan calls for a $10 million investment from the state in 2008 to pay for the startup costs for the Athens campus, including renovation of a facility to house courses and recruitment of a dean and other medical school faculty.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has recommended $7.2 million in funding to the University System of Georgia for medical college expansions, the release said.

Jackson said $2.8 million was already budgeted, so the $10 million will be met.

“The fact that it was in the governor’s budget was very positive,” Jackson said. The next step is legislative funding, he added.

The Athens campus should be accredited by 2009 or 2010 and open with a class of 40 students, the report recommends. By 2020, the plan suggests an increase in MCG’s current 745 students to 1,200.

By 2012, classes in Athens would move from a facility on or adjacent to the University’s main campus to the 58-acre former Navy Supply Corps School site on Prince Avenue, the report reads.

“Georgia cannot afford to miss the opportunity for the Navy property and facilities for future health sciences education,” the report says.

The plan estimates a $567 million regional economic impact and the direct or indirect development of 3,000 new jobs as a result of the Athens expansion. The report also calls for expansions of existing campuses in Augusta, the site of MCG’s main campus, as well as Savannah and Albany, where existing residential campuses are located.

MCG generates about $1 billion annually in economic impact, the report reads, and expansions across the state would increase that figure by nearly $800 million by 2020. During a period of several years, taxpayers can expect to see a return of $2.54 for every $1 they invest in MCG, the report concludes.

If the partnership is carried out, the report reads, “the cost to educate medical students at the Athens campus will be the lowest in the nation, approximately half the average per student cost for all U.S. medical schools.”

Georgia ranks 40th in the country for the number of physicians per capita, University System Chancellor Erroll Davis said at a news conference following the regents’ monthly meeting on Jan. 15.

Paul Umbach, president of Tripp Umbach, said at the news conference that expanding medical education is a national trend the state is leading through its expansion of MCG.

“This is truly a statewide program that has statewide benefits,” he said.