At first glance FAMU’s 2010-2011 general revenue appropriation figure may look much bigger than last year’s, but looks can be deceiving.FAMU received $92.6M in general revenue from this year’s legislative session. That’s up from $87M last year. However, $6M of next year’s general revenue appropriation is nonrecurring money designated for “special outreach” projects.
That means FAMU actually has about $86.6M to spend for recurring expenses.
All the State University System of Florida institutions took a 1.5 percent cut in recurring revenue during the legislative session that just ended. The SUS budget slid from $3.6B last year to $3.4B this year.
FAMU must deal with that 1.5 percent reduction while also preparing for federal stimulus dollars to expire in 2011-2012. FAMU used $7.4M in stimulus funds to save jobs this year and just received the final $8.4M in stimulus money.
After last year’s special session budget cuts, FAMU had $82.8M left. President James Ammons recently told the Tallahassee Democrat that the university plans to slice another $3.1M from its 2010-2011 budget.
By running on a $79.7M budget next year, FAMU will be ready for the pending loss of the more than $7M in stimulus money that it spent to pay personnel salaries. The $3.8M bump in general revenue (over last year's $82.8M special session figure), plus the $3.1M spending cut will help to fill the void that will be left when the stimulus money runs out.