Florida finance chief calls for special session to deal with budget, Miami Herald

By Marc Caputo and Mary Ellen Klas
November 11, 2008

Calling Florida's financial outlook ''ugly,'' the chief steward of the state's dwindling finances said Wednesday that Gov. Charlie Crist and the state Legislature need to hold a special lawmaking session as soon as possible.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said that state economists will likely announce on Nov. 21 that Florida's tax revenue, now $800 million below forecast, will slow by another $1.2 billion, leaving a budget gap of nearly $2 billion.

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Battle rages on accreditation, college money, Florida Times-Union

By Adam Aasen
November 11, 2008

As colleges are vying for their piece of the shrinking government funding pie, there are people who think some schools shouldn't be grabbing a slice.

The long-time feud is over accreditation, the process to determine if a school meets the standards to offer degrees, and many for-profit schools are being attacked for not going through the exact same process as public schools.

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University of Florida Records Hacked, Channel Web

November 12, 2008

The victims are no longer just banks and major retail chains. The University of Florida is the latest university to suffer a data breach. In this case, at least 330,000 current and former dental patients were potentially affected after unauthorized hackers gained access to the school's College of Dentistry computer server, which contained their personal information.

University officials detected the breach Oct. 3 while college IT staff were conducting an upgrade to the server and found that unauthorized software had been installed remotely.

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FCAT scaled back as budget withers, Orlando Sentinel

By Leslie Postal
November 12, 2008

FCAT may be the "big dog" in Florida education, but this year nothing is safe from budget cuts.

To save money, the Florida Department of Education has made some "difficult decisions" and scaled back its Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test program, according to a memo from the department.

Among the changes: the elimination of the summer makeup FCAT exam for high-school students; the cancellation of computer-based makeup exams; and discontinuation of the online FCAT Parent Network that allows parents to look up their kids' scores.

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State budget directors says Florida may see billion-dollar dip in collected taxes, News-Press (Ft. Myers)

By Bill Cotterell
November 10, 2008

The state budget director said today that next week’s revenue-estimating conference might result in a billion-dollar reduction in Florida’s projected tax collections.

That’s on top of the $1.4 billion already lopped off of revenue expectations for the current fiscal year. Jerry McDaniel, head of the Office of Policy and Budget, met with Gov. Charlie Crist for about 45 minutes this afternoon to go over options for coping with the state’s continued revenue shortfall.

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Jockying time in Tallahassee, Herald Tribune (Sarasota)

By Zac Anderson

November 10, 2008


The elections may be over, but the intrigue is just beginning over who will hold leadership positions in the state Legislature, and a few local politicians could wield significant power.

The area's two most senior legislators, Bradenton Republicans Ron Reagan and Bill Galvano, are both slated for top leadership positions as they enter their final terms. New Sen. Nancy Detert also could be a player.

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Pizzas get sliced, bugs snubbed as universities tighten budgets, Bloomberg.com

By Oliver Staley
November 10, 2008

The state of Georgia, pinched by falling tax revenue, is slashing $136 million from the budgets of its public colleges. To save, the schools are cutting jobs, services and even subscriptions to obscure academic journals.

Jill Parrott, 27, a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Georgia in Athens, said she may lose access to the Rhetoric Society Quarterly, which costs the school $200 a year.

The library, which is canceling at least 660 journals to save $1.66 million annually, is among hundreds of departments, at 35 schools in the University System of Georgia, that are scrimping. The U.S. economic slowdown means collections of sales and corporate taxes are falling, squeezing state budgets. Like Georgia's, university systems in Nevada, California and New York are among those already facing budget reductions.

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