Crist pledges support for FAMU during visit to The Hill

Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist repeated an earlier promise to fight to reverse Rick Scott’s cuts to public education during a campaign stop at FAMU. He also took jabs at his opponent’s decision to veto a number of FAMU line items in past legislative appropriations bills.

“I was the guy who didn’t veto stuff for FAMU,” Crist said.

Scott has used his veto power to take away three line items that the Florida Legislature voted to give FAMU. He vetoed $2M for Infrastructure/Capital Renewal and $500,000 that would have saved the John A. Mulrennan, Sr. Public Health Entomology Research and Education Center in Panama City in 2011. He also vetoed $1.5M for the Crestview Education Center in 2012.

The legislature did not approve any line items for FAMU in 2013. But for 2014, Scott permitted FAMU to keep $10M for Phase II of the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

(For the full FAMU budget record of the Scott administration, click here.)

Crist did veto one FAMU line item during his first year in office. He vetoed $7.5M for Pharmacy Phase II in 2007 because the university’s interim administration still had not spent any of the $2M in planning money that FAMU had received four years earlier.

Crist approved all of the other FAMU line items that made it to his desk due to the leadership of FAMU advocates such as Alfred “Al” Lawson, Durell Peaden, Curtis Richardson, and Alan Williams.

They included the following: $5M for Campus Infrastructure (2007), $2.5M for the new Developmental Research School (2007), $8.3M for the Gore Education Complex Renovation (2007), $8.5M for the Multi-Purpose Teaching Gymnasium (2007), $14M for the Tucker Hall Remodeling (2007), $1.2M for the University Commons Renovation (2007), $2M in planning money for Pharmacy Phase II (2008), $2.5M for the Crestview Education Center (2008), $2.96M for the University Commons Renovation (2008), $2.95M for the Multi-Purpose Teaching Gymnasium (2008), $7M for the Tucker Hall Remodeling (2008), $5M for Utilities/Infrastructure (2008), $5.6M for the Gore Education Complex (2009), $1.6M for Utility Upgrades (2009), $985,665 for FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Building III; $8.5M for the Crestview Educational Center (2010), $23M for Pharmacy Phase II (2010), $4.199M for Phase III of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering (2010), and $7M for Electrical Upgrades/Infrastructure (2010).