The restructuring process is on at FAMU and no part of the university needed to be restructured more badly than the Board of Trustees. The exit of former Trustee R.B. Holmes, Jr. is a step forward in moving FAMU in the right direction.R.B. recently bashed President James H. Ammons for his handling of FAMU’s shrinking budget. But R.B. did not say anything about his role in creating the budget squeeze that is about to lead to huge job losses at the university.
FAMU underwent big budget cuts two years before the national economic crisis began in 2007. Back in 2005, R.B. and other trustees let then-Interim President Castell Bryant destroy the university’s recruitment program and send FAMU’s student numbers into a nosedive. FAMU went from 13,070 students in Fall 2004 to only 11,567 students in Fall 2007.
During the Castell years, the majority of public universities in Florida were actually bringing in new revenue with enrollment increases. They have since used that money to help soften the blow from legislative across-the-board cuts.
FAMU took a multi-million dollar hit in state enrollment funding because of its failure to meet its legally required student numbers.
Starting with his first day as president in 2007, Ammons worked to save jobs by rebuilding the recruitment program and putting numerous salary lines on temporary federal stimulus dollars. But now that the stimulus is drying up, there is no choice but to begin eliminating positions. FAMU is getting ready to let go of 110 employees who are being paid with stimulus dollars and 86 additional workers whose positions are funded through other monetary sources.
R.B. still did not seem to grasp the importance of Ammons’ efforts to increase enrollment. R.B. cast the only “no” vote against FAMU’s proposed bachelor’s degree in information technology (IT). The IT program will bring more money into the university by attracting new students. There are already 60 to 80 students on the waiting list.
R.B. criticized Ammons for planning to hire three new employees for the IT program at a time when many professors and staffers are in danger of being laid off. FAMUans started asking how R.B. could claim to be truly concerned about job cuts when he never publicly criticized his brother, former Developmental Research School (DRS) Superintendent Ronald Holmes, for trying to lay off teachers at the K-12 school.
Ronald announced plans to lay off nine DRS teachers in January 2010 to help close the budget hole. R.B. did not raise a public stink about his brother’s decision. Many Rattlers wondered if R.B. lashed out at Ammons because he was somehow angry about the president’s decision to accept Ronald’s resignation.
FAMU’s restructuring process is better off now that R.B. will not be sitting at the table with the rest of the trustees. If the university is lucky, R.B. will just leave FAMU alone after he receives his farewell resolution at the upcoming board meeting.