Board of Governors
StateUniversity System of Florida
News Clips of the StateUniversity System of Florida
March 4, 2008
Board of Governors
University governors under assault | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat
03/04/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
TALLAHASSEE -- The Board of Governors is under pressure not only to survive a bleak financial forecast by the state, but also to defeat a bill that proposes to overhaul the group and strip it of its powers.
“It’s going to be a grim year, to say the least,” said Chancellor Mark Rosenberg, in a conference call with the governing board of the State University System Tuesday morning.
A resolution sponsored by Sen. Lisa Carlton, R-Osprey, (SJR2308) proposes a constitutional amendment to do away with the BOG.
“This is not what the voters wanted,” said Chairwoman Carolyn Roberts.
Carlton's resolution would establish again the Cabinet level position of commissioner of education and undo the changes approved by voters when the BOG was created.
Board members discussed lobbying legislators on the resolution and wanted to slow the process down. Roberts said the Senate will discuss the issue Wednesday afternoon and the House as soon as Friday. Roberts said she wants leadership in the House and Senate to let the BOG “have input into this discussion and slow the process to have this in the best interest of the people of Florida.”
Senator's proposal could overhaul Florida's education leadership
03/04/2008 © Palm Beach Post
TALLAHASSEE — A proposal filed last week by a senior Senator could overhaul the leadership of Florida's education system, eliminating much of the power currently held by the Board of Governors and individual university boards of trustees.
The joint resolution, filed by Sen. Lisa Carlton, R-Osprey, is scheduled to be heard Wednesday by the Senate Education PreK-12 committee. It would give most oversight authority to a new State Board of Education consisting of the governor, the Cabinet, and a new elected Commissioner of Education.
The Board of Governors, which was created by voters in 2002 through constitutional amendment, would be reduced from its current 14 members to five members and would "administer the state university system as provided by law" according to the proposal.
The Board of Governors and the legislature are at odds over university management, including the question of who is in charge of setting tuition.
The board believes the constitution gives it tuition authority, while the legislature maintains it is the right of lawmakers to decide on the cost of higher education in Florida.
A lawsuit aims to end the tuition standoff, but there's no telling when it will be concluded.
Because Carlton's proposal would require a change to the state constitution, it would need a majority vote in the House and Senate before reaching the voters, who would make the ultimate decision at the polls.
Higher education to be hit hardest by cuts
03/04/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
Nearly 20-percent of the overall Legislative budget cuts will come from public colleges and universities if the state House and Senate approve a proposed bill of the higher education appropriations committee.
The committee Monday approved for the 2007-2008 budget cut recommendations to be made into a bill.
If approved by the Legislature, $92.2 million could be trimmed from state universities and colleges. However, the news that so much could be taken away from state colleges didn’t sit well with committee members.
“Certainly we do not want to take an inordinate amount of the cut at a time when we are urging more and more students should be in higher education,” said committee chairwoman Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R—Ormond Beach.
But the outlook continues to look bleak, Lynn said.
“Each day the incomes of the state are going down,” she said. “When you look at next year’s dollars and reductions you’re going to find that it’s not going to be a higher-ed hit, it’s going to be an across the board — very difficult year.”
She asked each of the three other committee members in attendance to fight to save as much of the higher education dollars as possible.
“It’s far easier to look in everyone’s eye and say everyone’s holding to the burden,” said state Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville.
“I don’t think we’re going to get out of this budget crisis by cutting,” said Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate
Bright Futures program needs adjustment to improve effectiveness of state university system
03/04/2008 © Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
ISSUE: Bright Futures needs adjustment.
The Bright Futures Scholarship program is a success. It has drawn top-notch students to the state university system, and it helps many families afford the cost of sending their children to college.
However, the price tag on the program has ballooned from $70 million in 1997 to $340 million for the 2006-2007 academic year. That's not a huge part of the state budget, but the hidden damage comes in the toll it's taking on state university financing. Dollars going to Bright Futures ultimately mean fewer dollars going to universities for professors, classrooms and equipment — and a lower standard of quality.
A strapped state budget and overwhelmed state university system now require the following, modest adjustments to Bright Futures:
First, the criteria for a 75 percent scholarship must be increased. The current 3.0 grade point average should be raised to 3.25, and the needed SAT score ought to be raised to 1,000, up from 970.
In addition, the tuition coverage for both the 75 percent and 100 percent scholarships need to be lowered. The 75 percent scholarship should be reduced to 50 percent and the 100 percent award to 75 percent. Another potential change, one formerly proposed by state Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, would provide scholarship money to people studying math and the sciences.
Currently, none of these reforms has a shot at getting through the Legislature. So what needs to happen? The stakeholders involved — universities, lawmakers, student organizations and others — need to build a consensus for reform.
That consensus needs to focus on the benefits, that savings would be steered to the university system to improve the quality of education. Florida is a state in the globalization crossroad. We need a top-notch, highly-skilled workforce to energize our economy.
The goals set for Bright Futures a decade ago have been met. Today's Florida has different needs that can be partly met by adjusting Bright Futures.
BOTTOM LINE: Today's Florida presents a different challenge that necessitates adjustments.
Senate president charts safe course for session
03/04/2008 © Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE -- No ''major'' insurance revisions or tax-cut plans. Big budget cuts. Money for the wrongfully incarcerated. More legislative control of state universities.
Don't expect a whole lot more out of the Florida Legislature during the 60-day lawmaking session that begins Tuesday.
Technically, the modest agenda is just Senate President Ken Pruitt's and not that of the full Legislature. But as Pruitt goes, so goes the Senate. And as the Senate goes, so goes the Florida Legislature.
Even last year, when Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami set the agenda, the final decisions were ultimately made by the upper chamber, which has longer-serving members who have more political acumen, an institutional spirit of bipartisanship and is allied with Gov. Charlie Crist more closely than the House.
This year, talk of Rubio -- and therefore the House's agenda-setting prowess -- was conspicuous in its absence.
Last year, Pruitt couldn't praise Rubio enough as a ''star'' and chief ''architect'' of ideas that the ''master builders'' in the Senate would refine. But this year in a pre-session chat with reporters, Pruitt skipped any mention of Rubio, whose hardball politics in pushing for steep and politically unfeasible property-tax cuts estranged senators from both parties last year and during three tense special lawmaking sessions.
`NO APPETITE'
Pruitt now wants to see the effects of two tax-cut measures -- one approved by voters, the other by the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist -- before doing anything more significant.
''I'll be clear with you: There will be no concerted effort from the leadership of the Florida Senate to do anything more,'' said Pruitt, a Port St. Lucie Republican. ``I'm not going to stop anybody from filing a bill. But if we shared with them that there would be no leadership assistance, hopefully they'll know there's no appetite over here.''
Pruitt's change of tone is marked from a year ago, when he repeatedly refused to ''pre-judge'' almost any issue, saying everything deserved a fair hearing without the presiding officer weighing in. Pruitt did weigh in last year to block compensation for Alan Crotzer, who spent 24 years in prison for two rapes he didn't commit.
Now, Pruitt has made Crotzer's compensation a top concern. Rounding out his agenda: proposals to protect senior citizens, spend billions more on roads, reauthorize an environmental land-buying program and invest in alternative-energy production.
Pruitt is hesitant to do much more because the state's finances are in such shambles. Legislators will need to cut this year's and next year's budgets during this session, and focusing on divisive issues could sidetrack them. Pruitt says the budget cuts won't be ''slash and burn'' but said some public employees should brace for furloughs.
''I'd rather have them do that and keep their job and know that next year it's going to get better,'' he said. ``But there's also public service. People that work for government better have a public-service mentality.''
Because it's an election year, partisanship will color what relatively few policies get passed this year. That's especially true in the bipartisan Senate now that Republican Sen. Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach, selected as next year's Senate president, faces a potentially tough election in November against former Democratic Tamarac Sen. Skip Campbell. Polls from both parties suggest the race is a toss-up.
STORM INSURANCE
Atwater is leading a Senate committee that's investigating whether hurricane insurers complied with the intent of a reform law passed last year that undid big portions of an insurance-friendly bill he sponsored in 2006.
Pruitt said he expects Atwater's committee will ''refine'' and improve the insurance reform of last year, ``but I don't see us doing anything major.''
Atwater's likely successor for Senate president, Sen. Mike Haridopolos, also faces some political trouble over his $75,000-a-year lecturing job at the University of Florida. Some UF staffers have questioned the motives of the hire -- especially as the university's spending is reduced.
BIG FIGHT
But Haridopolos' UF job will be a sideshow to the real higher-education policy battle: Pruitt's proposed constitutional amendment asking voters to clearly give the Legislature the authority over university tuition rates.
The amendment would largely undo a 2002 constitutional amendment, pushed by former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, that created the Board of Governors over the 11 state universities. Graham and the board have sued the Legislature to stay out of the university tuition business. The board's just-aborted decision to tinker with the Bright Futures scholarship program further inflamed the bad relations with the Legislature.
The amendment also would make the board smaller and make the education commissioner a statewide elected position, which it was before 2002.
LEGACY
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the fact that he never went to college, Pruitt has made affordable higher education a legacy issue. And he has helped steer hundreds of millions to top-notch research firms in an effort to help ''transform'' Florida's ''service-based economy'' to a ''knowledge-based'' one.
In that regard, Pruitt said the troubles with the economy are really growing pains.
''The days of coming to Florida with $500 in your pocket and living in a mobile home and living a life in paradise are over,'' he said. ``And that's probably not a bad thing for Florida.''
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FloridaA&MUniversity
FAMU puts 14 projects on its wishlist for Legislature
03/04/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
FloridaA&MUniversity has requested $23,740,945 from the state to pay for 14 projects. They include
• renovate University Commons ($2,960,430),
• construct Multi-PurposeCenter teaching gym ($ 2,950,000),
• improve Utilities/Infrastructure/ Capital Renewal/Roofs ($7 million),
• construct Pharmacy building phase III ($2 million),
• hire faculty and staff and enhance student support in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences ($998,269),
• match federal grant funding for food and agricultural sciences ($500,000),
• recruit and retain public safety officers ($433,246),
• upgrade Fiscal Affairs technology ($2,336,400),
• fund high school programs in Allied Health ($758,000),
• develop an online master’s in teaching degree ($200,000),
• hire more professors to teach underclassmen ($300,000),
• match federal funding for mentoring and tutoring at FAMU DRS ($94,500),
• expand pre-Engineering outreach programs ($500,000), and
• pay for faculty and technology in the School of Business & Industry ($1,146,500).
The Florida Legislature will convene March 4 for its 60-day Regular Session to create the state’s 2008-2009 budget.
“It is hard to tell whether FAMU will get all requested monies for 2008-2009,” said David Ash, legislative assistant to Sen. Al Lawson, D-Quincy. “Ideally, the senators would like to see all of their projects funded. It’s just a matter of whether (the state) has enough money to fund them.”
That’s not good news for FAMU because “everybody’s looking at a way to save money and make cuts,” Ash said.
FAMU’s Director of Government Relations Tola Thompson, said he has high hopes for the approval of the requests. “We understand fully the economic challenges the state is currently faced with. However, we’re optimistic that legislators will come to understand and value higher education as an economic development tool,” Thompson said. “Points like these helps the state leaders further understand the importance that FAMU adds to the state.”
Annette Jackson, legislative assistant to Lawson, said that no county or institution is looked at on an individual basis when allocating funds. “The budget is looked at as a whole. There is no standard, just a matter of priority and funds available,” Jackson said.
Local legislators will try to protect state employees in lean times
03/04/2008 © Tallahassee Democrat
Facing a lean revenue situation this year, Tallahassee-area legislators say they’ll try this session to protect proposed raises for state workers and state funding for rural counties.
Gov. Charlie Crist has proposed a 2 percent raise for state employees based on performance. But the current budget faces a $2 billion shortfall and some legislators say Crist’s revenue outlook for next year is too rosy.
State employees received a one-time bonus last year but no raise.
“There is a breaking point,” Rep. Loranne Ausley, D-Tallahassee, said. “I think our state employees are way past that.”
The state university system also is facing tough times, and local college presidents don’t want it to get worse this session.
Florida State University President T. K. Wetherell and Florida A&M University President James Ammons told a local legislative delegation hearing that cuts are affecting their schools Wetherell said FSU’s budget was cut by $30 million since it was approved last year and the state university system lost about $200 million.
“I cannot tell you how devastating that is to the higher education system,” Wetherell said.
The upcoming session, some legislators said, won’t be fun.
“It is a day-and-night situation when things are tight,” said Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee. “You have to be there all the time.”
Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee, said he’s concerned that rising tuition, without increasing financial aid, is making higher education unaffordable for students from middle- and lower-class families.
“If we don’t have a well-educated, well-trained workforce we’re not going to be able to attract businesses to our state or train for those that are here,” Richardson said. “We have to invest more in our system of higher education.”
Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna and chair of the House Committee on Postsecondary Education, said legislators are working on innovative solutions for all of higher education including universities, community colleges and training centers.
“We are figuring it out right now,” she said. “We are having to try to look at new ways of providing that training.”
Her district includes portions of LeonCounty.
Richardson and Rep. Will Kendrick, R-Carrabelle, said they’re also concerned about ensuring that rural counties are not hurt by the Amendment 1 property tax cut approved by voters on Jan. 29. Kendrick and Richardson said legislative leaders promised that rural counties harmless.
“Otherwise I can foresee us putting 'closed’ signs on a lot of county offices,”