Criser memo in Tallahassee Democrat doesn’t mention separate FSU engineering budget

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Last week, the Tallahassee Democrat ran a memo written by Florida Board of Governors (BOG) Chancellor Marshall Criser, III that discussed the recent changes at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering (COE). The memo defended the shift of the $12,996,539 core operating budget for the COE from the FAMU general revenue line item in the General Appropriations Act to a new budget entity entitled “FAMU/FSU College of Engineering.”

“Furthermore, the College’s shared financial structure is enhanced, not reduced, by the establishment of a separate appropriation category in the 2015-2016 General Appropriations Act,” Criser wrote. “The new category renews the College’s focus on its state’s investment and on its expenditures and is a crucial step toward establishing a College that truly operates in unison.”

But the memo as it appeared in the Democrat didn't mention that Florida State University still has a separate budget of more than $5 million that pays for about 38 FSU professors at the COE. That money is not part of the new “FAMU/FSU College of Engineering” budget entity that the BOG asked the legislature to put in the General Appropriations Act.

Both chambers of the legislature originally placed $12.9M for the College of Engineering in the FAMU general revenue budget at the start of the 2015 session. But on February 19, FAMU President Elmira Mangum gave her support to a BOG proposal that asked the legislature to create a new budget entity for the COE. 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 legislature set up the new budget entity for the COE the next month. Documents from the education appropriations subcommittees of the Florida House of Representatives and the Senate show that “all operating funds for the Joint College” are not in the new budget entity. 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. On March 16, the Education Appropriations Subcommittee of the House moved the $12.9M from the FAMU general revenue budget to a new budget entity entitled: “FAMU/FSU College of Engineering.” The Appropriations Subcommittee on Education of the Senate made the same change on the next day. 

Florida State University is still receiving millions for faculty at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in its separate budget. A Tallahassee Democrat article from 2014 reported that “the FSU budget is $5 million ‘and has been growing,’ [Dean Yaw Yeboah] said.” That money paid for 36 FSU professors in 2014.

The separate FSU engineering budget was also referenced in the study that CBT University Consulting presented to the BOG earlier this year.

“The budget is administered by FAMU as agreed in the 1987 Memorandum of Agreement,” the study said. “As a result, when FSU has wanted to increase funding of the Joint College unilaterally, it has designated funds within the FSU budget but not transferred them into the Joint College. Presumably, this is to retain control of the funds in the event that they need to pull some back. Hence, there is another roughly $6 million within FSU that supports Joint College faculty and research.”

CBT University Consulting added that the separate FSU engineering budget gave the firm questions about the ability of the dean to manage the COE.

“As noted in the faculty section, II.A.5, the fact that roughly 38 of the faculty in the Joint College are paid from FSU funds brings into question the dean’s authority to run the college. For any dean, this would be a very difficult environment within which to operate,” CBT University Consulting wrote.

Criser hasn’t released a public statement on why the separate FSU engineering budget isn’t part of the money that was placed into the new budget entity for the COE.

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education (3/17/2015)

House Education Appropriations Subcommittee (3/16/2015)

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