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(L-R) Arthenia Joyner, Mia Jones, Andrew Gillum, Alan
Williams, and Dwight Bullard
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The Florida Legislature designated FAMU to be in charge of
the money and put the funds in the university’s general revenue line between
1987 and 2014. But in May, after the legislature created a new budget entity
for the appropriation, a new Joint College of Engineering Governance Council
decided that it was going to start calling the shots about what happens to the
$12.9M COE budget instead of FAMU.
The council took that position even though it isn’t even mentioned in the General Appropriations Act that created the new budget entity.
No part of the General Appropriations Act says that the Joint College of
Engineering Governance Council has permission to take control of the $12.9M COE
budget.
Members of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus should ask
Florida Auditor General Sherrill F. Norman to open a formal investigation into the
recent actions of the Joint College of Engineering Governance Council and especially
its decision to shift the $12.9M COE appropriation from FAMU to FSU. The change
was done without a vote of approval from the FAMU Board of Trustees.
Back on July 9, WCTV-6 reported that FSU said the change “puts FSU in charge of implementing decisions of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Governance Council…Administrators say all decisions will made by the council.” The Tallahassee Democrat ran a letter on July 18 by Board of Governors Chancellor Marshall Criser, III that supported that explanation from FSU.
But FAMU BOT Chairman Rufus Montgomery and Vice-Chairman
Kelvin Lawson have said that the decision on budget authority for the COE is a
policy decision and that the rules of the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools say the Board of Trustees must approve policy changes.
FAMU’s policy for the past 28 years has been that it wants
to serve as the fiscal agent of the COE. The FAMU board reaffirmed that policy
in 2007 after its interim president said she had no problem with a legislative
plan to make FSU the fiscal agent for the COE instead of FAMU.
The Florida Legislative Black Caucus should make sure that
the Office of the Florida Auditor General knows that the General Appropriations
Act didn’t state that the Joint College of Engineering Governance Council is
charge of the $12.9M appropriation for the COE. The Black Caucus should also
ask the state auditor general to investigate the process behind the shift of
the $12.9M from FAMU to FSU.