“It is time to work together towards an agreement to institute a performance-based system of funding that will maintain an absolute stable funding line for institutions to meet a certain threshold of student enrollment, retention and graduation rates,” Alexander wrote in a letter to the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) on September 12th.
The BOG has until October 1, 2019 to make recommendations for “a complete performance-based continuous improvement model focused on outcomes that provides for the equitable distribution of performance funds.” The legislature passed this requirement during the last session at the request of Alexander and House Majority Leader Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero.
According to the News Service of Florida, Rodrigues wants the changes to include providing PBF money based on “‘continuous improvement’ by the schools regardless of how they are ranked against each other.”
Alexander and Rodrigues have both said that this is needed in order to make sure the BOG can no longer use a “Bottom 3” policy. Alexander criticized the “Bottom 3” again in his letter to the BOG.
“Institutions that fall in the bottom 3 are not funded regardless of whether or not they have shown improvement,” Alexander said.
He added: “Smaller schools must compete with each other to stay out of ‘bottom three’ (FGCU, UWF, NCF, FAMU, UNF) - all of these schools have been in ‘bottom three’ at least once. Allocation of non-recurring dollars make it difficult to use the funding for long-term planning.”
Now that it is under pressure from the Florida House of Representatives, the BOG Budget and Finance Committee announced in June that it will talk about recommending an end to the “Bottom 3” policy in October 2018.
But Alexander says that the legislature will need to pass fixes to more problems than just the “Bottom 3.” He said the following issues are also “barriers and challenges under the Performance Based System”:
- “Inconsistent results, in how funding is allocated, does not consistently reward universities for showing improvement; FAMU improved by 7 points and will not receive funding (score = 72 points) 2017: FAU decreased by 12 points and received funding (score = 72 points)”;
- “Encourages universities to “game the system” in order to move up in rankings may help explain the wide year-to-year fluctuations in scoring observed for several universities”;
- “Rankings do not always accurately reflect the relative quality, standing and impact of the universities”;
- “Wide variation in scores and rankings from year to year; FAU rankings first four years: 10, 7, 1, 7 UWF rankings first four years: 11, 5, 10, 3.”