$10.9M engineering college appropriation in FAMU’s budget should be left alone

Despite an Associated Press article that reported an announcement by the chancellor of the State University System of Florida that “an agreement has been reached” on the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, the FAMU Board of Trustees has not voted to support any changes to the program. The FAMU trustees should not give their backing to the Board of Governors’ (BOG) plan to ask the Florida Legislature to create “a new budget entity” to receive the college’s operating funds.

On Thursday, February 19, the BOG voted to approve a proposal entitled “Commitment to Guiding Principles and a Plan of Action for the FAMU-FSU Joint College of Engineering.” It states that: “The creation of a new budget entity for the Joint College will be pursued during the 2015 legislative session, to include all operating funds for the Joint College, including the appropriate amount of plant operation and maintenance funds.”

The annual $10.9M legislative appropriation that pays for the “plant operation and maintenance funds” currently goes into FAMU’s general revenue funds. That money also pays the salaries of 23 FAMU professors and 27 FSU professors. FSU receives a separate appropriation of $5M in its general revenue budget that pays for another 36 professors.

Chancellor Marshall Criser, III did not give any details about the “new budget entity” he wanted on Thursday during his presentation to the BOG. He only stated that he wanted it to follow “national models.” A report by the Capital News Service stated that the terms of the agreement mean that “funding from lawmakers will go directly to the school instead of both universities.”

The FAMU Board of Trustees should make sure that the university asks the Florida Legislature to continue placing the $10.9M operating budget for the College of Engineering into FAMU’s general revenue funds.

The plan of action that the BOG approved did not recommend any change to that. If FAMU stops receiving the annual operating budget appropriation, then FSU could end up controlling the entire college. That scenario almost happened in 2007.

Back in 2007, FSU President T.K. Wetherell got some of his state Senate buddies to shift the E-College’s then-$10.4M in operating funds into FSU’s legislative appropriation, rather than FAMU’s. The move would have put FSU in charge of the entire operating budget and administration for the college. But leaders such as Sen. Alfred “Al” Lawson, Rep. Curtis Richardson, and House Budget Chairman Ray Sansom succeeded in convincing both legislative chambers to rebuff T.K. and keep the money at FAMU.

Current FSU President John Thrasher has shown that he can’t be trusted on FAMU-related issues any more than T.K could. Last year, then-state Sen. Thrasher led an unsuccessful effort to split the joint E-College without bothering to tell FAMU ahead of time. He also refused to offer FAMU the $100M it would take to construct a brand new engineering college on the university’s main campus or the $5M in new recurring dollars that would be necessary to replace all of the FSU faculty who would leave.

The best way to avoid any funny business that could cheat FAMU out of a meaningful role in running the College of Engineering is for the $10.9M operating budget to remain in FAMU’s general revenue appropriation with no changes.  

Note (October 19, 2015): An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that: "FSU controls of the selection of the college dean."