This year, FAMU has two priorities on its legislative agenda: lobbying against any further budget cuts and requesting $1.5M to advance its dental school planning process. If the Florida Senate budget remains in its current state and passes through the House, FAMU could achieve both goals.Last week, the state Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee voted to increase the State University System budget by $128M (or 3.8 percent) over last year to a total of $3.54B.
Senators used nonrecurring federal stimulus dollars, sweeps from the Education Enhancement Trust Fund, and increases in student tuition and fees to create the budget boost.
While the numbers are reason for cautious optimism, the tuition and fee hike revenue projections utilize “fuzzy math.”
As FAMU President James Ammons noted last year, the legislature bases its tuition and fee projections on the assumption that every student will take a full course load. This is a serious problem because most of FAMU’s students take smaller course loads as college gets more expensive. That directly slices into overall tuition revenue.
Despite that shortcoming, the Senate budget is still preferable to the House version, which calls for a decrease in higher education spending. The Senate has proposed a $7B appropriation for public and private colleges. The House wants to spend $340M less, which would take the state down below last year’s $6.7B number.
Any further cuts to FAMU's legislative appropriations are likely to result in layoffs. In his 2010 State of the University Address, Ammons noted that 78 percent of the university's budget supports personnel. FAMU is curently using $8M in stimulus funds to help save 347 full- and part-time jobs, including adjunct faculty and overloads for regular full-time faculty.
doesn't most of this increase in funding go to the new medical schools at UCF and FIU?
ReplyDeleteYes, UCF and FIU are out there lobbying to get as much money as they can for their med schools. FAMU supporters have to go to the capitol and work hard to get our piece of the pie as well.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is lobbying hard for a bigger piece of the pie, its just that the state put itself on the hook for these new med schools so long ago and now that they are open its hard to pull the rug out from under them.
ReplyDeleteSo this increase in overall funding is a bit of a shell game. The new med schools get increases and everyone else takes it on the chin.
If there's enough money for these new med schools, then there's no reason that FAMU shouldn't be able to recieve $1.5M to help plan the dental school.
ReplyDeleteYou can bet that the state is going to make more money available for FAU's med school in the future, as well.
If FAMU doesn't get out and ask for new schools and more money then it won't get any.