Absence of FSU appropriation from new budget entity shows “transparency” talk isn’t sincere

big rattler
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When a politician with John Thrasher’s level of ruthlessness asks for a major legislative change with vague language, you can bet that he has a trick up his sleeve. This can now be seen in the “deal” on the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

Back on February 19, the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) approved a proposal to ask the legislature to create a new budget entity for the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The plan said that the new budget entity would “include all operating funds for the Joint College, including the appropriate amount of plant operation and maintenance funds.”

“The thing that I think President [Elmira Mangum] and I have both agreed on and certainly with your staff is this, this, these changes, these changes that we’re talking about, the organizational changes, the transparency, the accountability, which are all in here, which you all, every one of you I know believe in, uh, frankly go back to making this a successful program for the students,” FSU President Thrasher told the BOG at that meeting.

Thrasher also 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 about “transparency” and putting “into a separate fund the resources that we get for the joint college,” millions of dollars that FSU receives for the College of Engineering are not in the new budget entity.

Documents from the education appropriations subcommittees of the Florida House of Representatives and the Senate show that the only funds that were moved into the new budget entity were the Education & General (E&G) dollars that were previously in the FAMU budget. FSU is still receiving millions for faculty at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in its separate E&G budget.

Back in 2014, FAMU received a $10.9M appropriation for the College of Engineering in its general revenue (E&G) 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 (E&G) budget that paid for another 36 FSU professors.

Both chambers of the legislature originally placed an increased amount of $12.9M for the College of Engineering in the FAMU general revenue budget at the start of the 2015 session. But in March the education appropriations subcommittees of the House and Senate moved the $12.9M from the FAMU general revenue budget to a new budget entity entitled: “FAMU/FSU College of Engineering.”

Thrasher has not publicly stated that he has any problem with this. That shows that his demand for “transparency” was not sincere. There has been no change to add transparency for the engineering college funds that FSU is receiving in its general revenue appropriation. 

This might not be the only surprise that is waiting for FAMU in the suspicious language on the College of Engineering in the appropriations bills. The Florida Senate (where Thrasher served last year) has added a budget statement that creates a new Joint College Governance Council for the program.

That Senate language could be used to promote an interpretation that the Joint College Governance Council will be in charge of the budget. The Joint College Governance Council is formed in a way that could let FSU and the BOG chancellor simply vote together in order to make sure that FSU gets its way on all the big budget decisions.

Thrasher is a smart politician who knows how to use vague statements in the law to get what he wants. The FAMU administration helped to create a dangerous and an avoidable situation for the university when it agreed to support the BOG plan.   

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