Board of Governors takes step back in power struggle, Gainesville Sun

By Nathan Crabbe
June 20, 2008

ORLANDO - The Florida Board of Governors decided Thursday to give peace a chance.

It put the brakes on a plan to take power from university trustees, while signaling an interest in settling a lawsuit with the Florida Legislature over tuition.

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Public hears about school cuts, Gainesville Sun

By karen Voyles
June 20, 2008

Alachua County school Superintendent Dan Boyd was blunt Thursday night in his assessment of how school budgets got so thin over the past year.

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Editorial: Freshman cap cuts too deep, Naples News

June 19, 2008

We have grown accustomed to hearing about budget cuts in the public sector. We watch to see which services are going to be eliminated or postponed.

When the affected government entity is Florida Gulf Coast University and student enrollment is on the chopping block, that really gets our attention.

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A new way to fund Florida universities? Orlando Sun-Sentinel

By Scott Travis
June 20, 2008

For years, Florida universities have had one major way to collect more dollars: Get big.

Some say it's a flawed way to pay for higher education, and it has contributed to the state having some of the country's largest and most crowded universities.

But a new proposal could rein in the growth and possibly provide more stable funding for state universities. The Board of Governors, the policymaking body for the state university system, may ask the Legislature to overhaul the way universities get their money. The board discussed the proposal briefly at a meeting Thursday in Orlando.

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Fight over control of universities resumes, St. Petersburg Times

By Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler

ORLANDO — The fight for control of Florida's public universities is far from over.

If Round 1 was this spring, when lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment stripping power from the colleges' governing board, then Round 2 comes today.

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Florida's public universities trying to get a jump on budgeting, Orlando Sentinel

By Luis Zaragoza
June 19, 2008

An early draft of the proposed 2009-10 budget for Florida's public universities shows them trying to recoup some of the money lost to budget cuts in previous years. But Board of Governors members meeting today at the University of Central Florida in Orlando were told that gloomy state financial forecasts make requests for more money uncertain. State universities lost about $100 million in the current budget year and may lose a similar amount in the new budget year that begins July 1. The draft 2009-10 budget seeks nearly 5 percent more money than the previous year. Among the requests: $18 million to improve campus safety. The board made the same request for 2008-09, but the Legislature did not provide the money. The board will review a more detailed budget when it meets in August.

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War of fiscal attrition, The Ledger (Lakeland)

June 19, 2008

A week ago Wednesday, Gov. Charlie Crist quietly signed a new state budget that cuts spending by $6 billion from the previous year. On the very next day, he announced that he would withhold an additional 4 percent from state agencies in anticipation of budget cuts yet to come. Call it a fiscal double whammy.

Crist did the same thing last year, in preparation for reductions in state revenue collections that were projected because of the failing economy. The projections came true.

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