But the committee didn’t vote on recommending that the full BOG scrap the “Bottom 3.” BOG Vice-Chair Sydney Kitson, who also chairs the committee, just said that he thinks the BOG will take up the “Bottom 3” policy at its November meeting.
“We’re not voting on anything, but I think we’re going to vote on this November. Is that correct?” Kitson asked BOG General Counsel Vikki Shirley. When she agreed, Kitson said “OK” and moved on.
Changes to PBF were only on the committee agenda “for discussion.”
The BOG is scheduled to meet again November 7-8. That’s right after the November 6th gubernatorial election.
The BOG has been under pressure from the Florida House of Representatives to put an end to the “Bottom 3” policy. State Rep. Ramon Alexander, D-Tallahassee, and House Majority Leader Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero called for that change in their bipartisan effort to overhaul the PBF metrics during the last legislative session.
Gov. Rick Scott has been quiet about the “Bottom 3” policy and Republican gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis seems be just fine with the current way the BOG handles PBF. His campaign website doesn’t state any plans to change anything about PBF. DeSantis says that he “will work with the Legislature to increase performance funding and enhance other programs that have proven effective at improving 4-year graduation rates, increasing student retention rates, lowering student costs, and reducing student debt.”
But Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum wants to overhaul PBF.
“In its current format, the performance funding model for our state universities is exacerbating inequalities and unfairly punishing some universities, including Florida’s largest institution of higher education dedicated to serving people of color,” Gillum told the Sarasota Herald Tribune. “Not only have some universities received zero state performance funding, but an individual university’s own budget is harmed by not receiving back its own share of institutional investment. That’s wrong.”
FAMU was denied new state investment PBF funds in 2015-2016, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 because of the “Bottom 3” policy.
Gillum and Alexander are both graduates of FAMU.
The BOG committee also talked about changing PBF so “universities that increase their score over the last year receive 100% of their allocation of the state investment.” That also goes along with Gillum’s statement that “our state college system performance funding of comparing improvement against own past performance is much more fair.”
But there won’t be any official word on what the BOG is going to do until Florida voters elect either Gillum or DeSantis as governor on November 6th.
