First, the House and Senate agreed to an overall budget reduction of $35 million for all universities. That equates to about $5.5 million for Florida State University. They did not provide any funds for performance or preeminence in the budget. The House had proposed and additional $100 million in cuts for universities, but the Senate was successful in preventing the more drastic reductions.
Thankfully, the Senate provided Florida State University with $6 million to prevent us from realizing the cut. Additionally, the Interdisciplinary Research and Commercialization Building (IRCB) received $4.24 million, adding to the $16 million we received over the past two budget cycles.
This year, the Legislature directed state dollars toward K-12 education, providing an historic increase of nearly $250 per student; the environment, with a $680 million; and Hurricane Michael, with $1.86 billion to assist with recovery.
Overall, higher education did not see the increases we had realized in the past years, but Florida State University did receive an appropriation to blunt the cuts that some of the other universities in Florida did not receive.
The next legislative session is just around the corner, staring in January of 2020.
Thank you for your interest in Legislative Affairs at Florida State University. We look forward to providing you with a complete summary next week of the higher education bills that are pending in the Legislature.
Kathy Mears
https://govrel.fsu.edu/legisletter/2019/legisletter-2019-05-02
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/294773-budget-conference-house-reluctant-toward-super-preeminence-fund-for-uf-fsu
The House and Senate are at odds over how to spend $13 million on Florida universities.
During a budget conference Thursday, House higher-ed spending negotiators declined to take up the Senate’s position on creating a line item for “National Ranking Operational Enhancement.” The Senate wants $13 million for the fund, which would go toward Florida State University (FSU) and the University of Florida (UF).
Rep.
Randy Fine, who’s leading higher-ed budget talks in his chamber, described the money as “
kind of like super-preeminence” when speaking to reporters after the brief conference. The state rewards preeminent universities based on a series of metrics. UF, FSU and the University of South Florida have met that threshold.
Instead of creating the $13 million pool for FSU and UF, the House currently wants to see that money — and then some — go toward support for regional universities.
“That’s an open issue that obviously the Senate will be visiting now,” Fine said.
The Senate on Wednesday night
produced an overall higher-ed spending offer that totals about $145 million less than the college and university budget it passed earlier this month.
The two chambers have agreed to a $35.3 million cut to university base funding. While it’s not immediately clear how that cut will affect each university’s budget, Fine suggested it would be proportional across the board.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-florida-budget-tuesday-20190430-story.html
Cummings and Sen. Rob Bradley, the Senate’s top budget negotiator, also agreed to put boost annual funding for some universities to make up for an overall cut of $35 million, but the
University of Central Florida wasn’t among them.
The University of Florida and
Florida State University received $15 million to keep moving up in national college rankings.
Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida Atlantic University, the University of North Florida and Florida International University each received $10 million for operational costs.
The Florida Senate added a $13 million budget item for the University of Florida and Florida State University in its budget conference Wednesday for “national ranking operational enhancement.”
The funding is intended to ensure both universities continue to rise in the U.S. News and World Report higher education rankings. UF is currently ranked No. 8 and FSU No. 26 for public universities in the U.S. The goal is to bring UF into the top five and FSU into the top 25.
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/06/08/fsu-trustees-approve-1-8-billion-budget-next-year-focus-academics-student-life/685990002/
Florida State University’s board of trustees Friday approved a $1.8 billion budget for next year that includes spending to hire more than 100 new faculty members, boosting scholarships for incoming students and increasing student success initiatives.
The spending plan represents a $130 million increase from this year’s budget. It is bolstered by a $25 million increase in new state funding, along with restricted increases in Pell grants ($17 million); state grants $34 million) and money from other grants and donations ($30 million).
Kyle Clark, vice president for finance and administration, told trustees FSU is expecting $2.8 million in new performance funding and an estimated $6.1 million in recurring preeminence funding.
Also, Friday, following a lengthy discussion, trustees voted 9-3 to impose an assessmenton all fraternities and sororities and student organizations not listed as Registered Student Organizations. Those organizations do not receive funding from student activities and service fees.
Under the plan, organizations would be required to pay an assessment up to $50 per member for the fall and spring semesters, to help offset costs associated with overseeing Greek life by the Office of Student Affairs.
The assessment could generate an additional $500,000 to the office’s budget for the 2019-2020 academic year.
The board first discussed the assessment idea in February. Then, it was challenged by Trustee Brent Sembler, who called it a “tax” in disguise. Trustees Emily Fleming “June” Duda and Craig Mateer joined Sembler in opposing the proposal Friday.
“To me, this is nickel and diming our students in a $2-billion institution,” Sembler said.
“I feel blindsided by this,” said Duda added, who complained the issue wasn’t raised in Thursday’s Student Affairs committee meeting. Clark said it was discussed in the budget and finance committee meeting.
Mateer called it a “socialist” tax.
But Thrasher and BOT Chairman Ed Burr said the vote gives the organizations a year’s notice of the possible changes in fall 2019.
Supporters of the plan agreed to gauge the impact of the new funding in next year’s budget.
Thrasher said his decision to place $1-million toward the division – rather than in another category – shows the importance of FSU improving supervision of Greek-life and investing in programs that will benefit student life campus wide.
“Until we implement these programs, we’ll never know,” he said of the university’s success of changing student culture. “I want to save the fraternities and sororities, I really do. But we cannot afford to have another incident like we had last November.”
https://trustees.fsu.edu/meetings/materials/20190221/Materials-2019-02-21.pdf
8th in country for percent of alumni who give back
