The University of South Florida Polytechnic is set to take more than one-third of the State University System’s (SUS) Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) appropriation.The latest conference report on SB 2000, the General Appropriations Act, gives Polytech $46M of the total $137,255,709 in SUS PECO dollars. Polytech is located in Lakeland, part of the district of Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander.
Polytech’s PECO funds are marked for the following construction projects: New Campus Phase I ($35M); School of Pharmacy Building ($10M); Interdisciplinary Center for Excellence ($1M).
FAMU will receive a total of $2,014,769 in PECO funds in 2011-2012 for electrical and technology upgrades. That number is far short of the $9M that FAMU actually needs to continue critical building code and safety improvements next year.
Last session, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed $46M designated for Polytech, including money for a pharmacy building. He left $6M in operational dollars for the Polytech pharmacy school intact.
USF initially asked for the pharmacy school to be placed on its Tampa campus. It proposed building a program that would match FAMU’s in size, operational funding, and research dollars. Alexander shocked USF-Tampa supporters by arranging for the new pharmacy school's authorization to be limited to USF-Lakeland.
There’s little secret about Lakeland’s long-term ambition to have its own state university. The buzz is that the city’s legislative delegation will eventually introduce a bill to turn USF Polytechnic into a free-standing university named “Florida Polytechnic.”
If Polytech receives its $46M in PECO funds this year, its pharmacy school will likely became a flagship program that will help the future university recruit top performing high school seniors and pump millions of research dollars into its budget.
Graphic Credit: Florida Board of Governors.
I'm not surprised.
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