Back on February 19, the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) voted
to seek a "new budget entity" for the funds that the Florida Legislature designates
for the college. It went ahead with that decision even though the FAMU Board of
Trustees had not taken a vote to support any changes to the program.
On that day, FSU President John Thrasher told WCTV-6 that
the BOG plan “creates a new opportunity for governance of the school as well as
trying to isolate and put into a separate fund the resources that we get for
the joint college.”
But despite what Thrasher said in February, the new budget
entity does not have all of the operating funds that the College of Engineering
received in 2014.
Last year, FAMU received a $10.9M appropriation for the program in its general revenue budget. That was the money for maintenance needs, plant operations, and the salaries of 23 FAMU professors and 27 FSU professors. FSU received a separate appropriation of $5M in its general revenue budget that paid for another 36 FSU professors.
The new budget entity for the college appears as item 138A
under Section 2 of the General Appropriations Act in both the Florida Senate and
House of Representatives. It is entitled “Florida Agricultural and Mechanical
University and Florida State University College of Engineering from General
Revenue Fund.” The House proposes $12,999,761 but the Senate proposes slightly
less with $12,997,476.
If the new budget entity had all of the money that the college
received in 2014, the total would be about $16M. But the House and Senate bills
both list approximately $13M for the line item.
FSU has not publicly stated that it has a problem with the total
amount of money in the new budget entity. That means that all of the money for the FSU faculty at college must be safe. If there was any threat of FSU faculty jobs
being cut, then FSU would be making a fuss in the state newspapers.
FAMU trustees need to ask why the new budget entity only has
about $13M instead of the combined amount of almost $16M that the two
universities received for the College of Engineering in 2014.
The FAMU board also needs to ask what assurances are in
place to make sure that FAMU continues to manage the operations budget for
college. Back in 1987, FAMU President Frederick S. Humphries and FSU President
Bernie Sliger signed an agreement that said that FAMU would have that duty on a
permanent basis. The two presidents also agreed that FSU would be permanently
in charge of selecting the dean of the college.
When FAMU received the $10.9M for the college in its general
revenue appropriations, that helped ensure that the 1987 agreement was
enforced. But who is going to directly receive the money that is in the new
budget entity?
These questions all need to be answered in order to avoid
any harmful surprises at the end of the 2015 legislative session.