University President Michael Adams remains optimistic about the University’s economic situation for this semester and for next year, he said in a budget update Friday.

He said he knew several members of the University community are worried about layoffs, but the situation today is much brighter than it was in the fall.

Adams attributed the relative stability of the layoff question to good management and savings at the institutional level.

But a question-and-answer session after his speech highlighted the ways in which budget cuts have affected the University and the Athens community.

Several members of the audience mentioned the economic disparity between the University and the city of Athens, as well as inequalities within the University.

One student mentioned the idea of “furloughing from the top,” with more furlough days for senior administrators.

She said she calculated that Adams’ furlough days saved the University $14,000, whereas furlough days for a food service employee or library employee saved only $700.

Adams responded that most senior administrators at the University were paid less than those in comparable positions at other universities.

“Many of them work long hours and are essential to the ongoing operations,” he said of the administration.

“If it weren’t for these folks, the story here for the very people that you outlined would be much worse than it has been,” he said.

Adams said the Chancellor’s office indicated there are no additional furlough days planned, but the budget situation remains fluid.

He said that he had made donations to the University, and that many top administrators had done the same. 

But he said he wanted to avoid making the issue personal.

“I’m simply not going to personalize it,” he said. “I’m not going to defend myself, and I’m not going to defend anybody in the central administration, because our philosophy from day one has been that we’re all in this together.”

Not everyone accepted that answer.

“I was just really surprised that the president wouldn’t even dignify a question with a response,” said Michelle Lewin, an Athens resident.

A faculty member, Pamela Voekel, said the Athens community and the University’s library were priorities to her.

“A lot of us making the amount of money that I’m making would be more than happy to take an extra furlough day in order that somebody in the library would not have to do that,” she said.

Voekel, an associate professor in the department of history, said the University was responsible for some of the inequality in Athens.

“The University of Georgia is producing poverty, in essence,” she said after the question-and-answer session. “It’s very personal.”

Several other audience members questioned the economic disparity between the University and the city.

“The University has made substantial progress in the last five years in dealing with its lowest paid workers,” Adams said. “They are still paid less than probably you or I, either one, want. The fact of the matter is, right now, in this budget there are not anticipated increases for anyone.”

Matt Boynton, a senior from Roswell and a member of the UGA Living Wage Campaign — a student group advocating paying workers an amount large enough to pay their minimum  bills — said he didn’t accept that logic.

“There’s often the excuse that during a time of crisis, we can’t do anything about where our funds are going,” he said. “But that’s a fiction. At the same time as we have administrators making over half a million dollars, we have staff who really are living below the poverty line.”