“Furthermore, the College’s shared financial structure is
enhanced, not reduced, by the establishment of a separate appropriation
category in the 2015-2016 General Appropriations Act,” Criser wrote. “The new
category renews the College’s focus on its state’s investment and on its
expenditures and is a crucial step toward establishing a College that truly
operates in unison.”
But the memo as it appeared in the Democrat didn't
mention that Florida State University still has a separate budget of more than
$5 million that pays for about 38 FSU professors at the
COE. That money is not part of the new “FAMU/FSU College of Engineering” budget
entity that the BOG asked the legislature to put in the General Appropriations Act.
The legislature set up the new budget entity for the COE the
next month. Documents from the education appropriations subcommittees of the
Florida House of Representatives and the Senate show that “all operating funds
for the Joint College” are not in the new budget entity. The only funds that
were moved into the new budget entity were the Education & General
(E&G) dollars that were previously in the FAMU budget. On March 16, the
Education Appropriations Subcommittee of the House moved the $12.9M from the
FAMU general revenue budget to a new budget entity entitled: “FAMU/FSU College
of Engineering.” The Appropriations Subcommittee on Education of the Senate
made the same change on the next day.
Florida State University is still receiving millions for
faculty at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in its separate budget.
A Tallahassee Democrat article from 2014 reported that “the FSU budget is $5
million ‘and has been growing,’ [Dean Yaw Yeboah] said.” That money paid for 36
FSU professors in 2014.
The separate FSU engineering budget was also referenced in
the study that CBT University Consulting presented to the BOG earlier this year.
“The budget is administered by FAMU as agreed in the 1987
Memorandum of Agreement,” the study said. “As a result, when FSU has wanted to
increase funding of the Joint College unilaterally, it has designated funds
within the FSU budget but not transferred them into the Joint College.
Presumably, this is to retain control of the funds in the event that they need
to pull some back. Hence, there is another roughly $6 million within FSU that
supports Joint College faculty and research.”
CBT University Consulting added that the separate FSU engineering budget gave the firm questions about the ability of the dean to manage the COE.
“As noted in the faculty section, II.A.5, the fact that
roughly 38 of the faculty in the Joint College are paid from FSU funds brings
into question the dean’s authority to run the college. For any dean, this would
be a very difficult environment within which to operate,” CBT University Consulting
wrote.
Criser hasn’t released a public statement on why the separate FSU engineering budget isn’t part of the money that was placed into the new budget entity for the COE.
Criser hasn’t released a public statement on why the separate FSU engineering budget isn’t part of the money that was placed into the new budget entity for the COE.
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Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education (3/17/2015)
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House Education Appropriations Subcommittee (3/16/2015)
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