ATLANTA - - Last Monday's list of possible cuts at the state's 35 public colleges and universities contained 4,000 layoffs, enrollment caps and elimination of dozens of majors. Not listed was use of pay cuts.

Legislators said they were disappointed. Sen. Seth Harp, the chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committees Subcommittee on Higher Education, said leaders should make the first sacrifice.

Sen. John Douglas, secretary of the subcommittee, suggested that University of Georgia President Michael Adams give up his $125,000 salary supplement to his $600,000 base pay.

"I don't even make $125,000," said Douglas, R-Social Circle.

The head of the largest state agency outside of the University System, B.J. Walker, earned $164,000 last year at the Department of Human Resources. Gov. Sonny Perdue made less than $140,000.

Yet, more than 18 people at UGA alone make more than $200,000.

Chancellor Erroll Davis told the members of the House and Senate higher education subcommittees Wednesday that cutting pay wasn't an option because keeping senior people from leaving to other universities was a priority.

"One of the tenets of business is you pay people competitive wages," he said, noting that not only is his background the energy business rather than a career in academia but that he also sits on the boards of two private universities that are actively poaching public colleges that cut pay.

Besides, the presidents of Georgia's public universities earn below comparable schools in the Southeast, he said.

"To suggest that because they make handsome salaries does not mean they are overpaid," he said.

Legislators are facing two choices that are both politically unpopular, cutting education or raising taxes.

To see how unpopular cutting education might be, the subcommittees asked Davis for a list of cuts that would total $300 million, the amount of a tax increase Perdue is recommending. Davis's list was not to include tuition increases, only cuts.

Lawmakers learned quickly how unpopular cuts can be when the protests began.

They also got a reminder last week of how unpopular taxes are. A coalition of anti-smoking groups released a poll showing 71 percent of those surveyed the prior week opposed increasing the sales tax, 78 percent opposed increasing the income tax, 81 percent opposed Perdue's tax on hospitals and medical plans, and 85 percent rejected adding back the sales tax on groceries.

The survey, which has 4 percent margin of error, did show that 71 percent favor a jump in the tobacco tax.

Given two unpopular choices, why not look for a third option? That's what legislators did Monday after Davis released his initial list. They asked him for information on specific ranges of cuts.

Cutting all pay 1 percent would yield $10 million in savings, he told them Wednesday. To get the whole $300 million would take a 28 percent pay cut.

Besides the impact on morale, take-home pay has already been reduced 5.5 percent through furloughs and increases in the employee share of health insurance.

Within the system, 70 percent of the 50,000 employees earn less than $50,000, and 92 percent earn less than $200,000 because only one of every five workers in the system is a faculty member.

Rep. Bill Hembree, the former chairman of the Higher Education Committee and now Rules chairman, reminded Davis that with a record 10.4 percent unemployment rate, many parents and taxpayers are happy just to have a job.

Davis replied that nationally renowned research professors aren't confined to Georgia's struggling labor market because of the millions of dollars in research grants they can bring to a university.

"They do not have to stay here," he said. "As you start talking about a salary cut, they don't have to. They are not happy just to have a job."

The frustrating thing for lawmakers is that no matter what they suggest, the Board of Regents is free to do whatever it wants, thanks to independence spelled out in the constitution. That independence was specially designed to shield the board of politics, and it works.