We don't venture far from sports usually, but it appears now that our university is in a bit of trouble as far as funding. Admittedly, I am not too big on the political side, so you'll have to forgive me if some of these things are not properly stated. I will, however, not be posting any opinions on here. You all are welcome to post what you feel in the comments or anywhere else, but this post is meant strictly to inform those who aren't up to date on the whole situation.
Yesterday it became apparent that the Florida state senate had entertained a proposition by state Senator J.D. Alexander to cut an egregious amount from the state of Florida's financial contribution to the state public university system. You may have heard Alexander's name in the recent months in the talks of the potential, and now probably impending, split of the USF Polytechnic satellite campus from the University of South Florida system. If you've heard of the cuts, you've surely heard that USF is the one shouldering a very significant amount of the load, suffering a cut of over 58% of their state funding. USF released an illustration of what they plan to do to cope with the losses this morning. I'll explain the situation after the jump.
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Overall, the state university system is facing a total cut of $453.3 million across the 11 current public 4-year universities. Below, I'll post a scan of the document (two-sided) that was handed out at the USF emergency budgetary meeting yesterday evening. I've done the hard part in figuring out the math of all of it. Under the proposed plan, USF will suffer cuts on all of their current campuses except the Sarasota-Manatee campus, which will for some reason gain $1.7 million. With everything factored in, USF loses a total of $140.7 million. To put that into perspective, that's nearly twice as much as the next highest cut from the University of Florida ($72.7). The state currently allocates about $1.65 billion to the universities as of the 2011-12 school year. The cuts, as stated before, total $453.3 million. That's a statewide budget cut of about 27.5%. However if you isolate what USF is losing, you'll see a serious lack of proportion. The $140.7 million out of the $453.3M cut is roughly 31% of the entire state's cut. That's 31% of the load, being pushed onto one university out of the eleven available.
Here's the scan of the part I just explained.
The back side of the document is an analysis of how the cuts would impact the USF Tampa campus alone and what a split for USF Polytechnic would mean. Of the $140.7M, the Tampa campus is taking a hit of $128M. A significant part of the cut is due to the proposition (also backed by Alexander) to allow the USF Polytechnic campus in Lakeland to break away from the USF system and become an independent university. If that becomes the case, the USF system will still absorb all the costs of running the Poly campus, including paying the on-site non-faculty staff responsible for the upkeep of the campus and also continuing its funding of the pharmacy program, which costs $6M annually. The bar graphs on the bottom half of the page show USF's money balances. The one on the left shows where USF stood about 8 months ago as far as their reserve funds plus their generated funds. The state requires a university to have a 5% minimum cash reserve. As you can see, in July, when the Poly campus is projected to break away. The graph on the right shows USF's revenue plus funding from lottery sales per student. For now, disregard the large red bar on the end as it is unrelated to the data here.
Here's the back side to that page:
If these budget cuts do pass in the Senate (which is doubtful for the way they currently are, but are still likely to happen in some fashion), then USF will have to cut out some of their programs, either academically or athletically. USF has come an incredible way from being founded just over 50 years ago. They've risen to be one of the top 30 research universities in the nation and their athletics has moved into the highest level of competition in college athletics in just a short while. There is a way that each of us can have a hand in helping not only our own university, but all the universities in the state of Florida (Yes, even UCF.). USF is more than a university to the Tampa community. It generates over $3 billion dollars annually for the entire Tampa Bay area, and it is an economic engine for the whole West Coast.
Now it's our turn to take action. An email or a call or a hand-written letter to any state representative is a gesture that does not go unnoticed. Tell these legislators that a cut this large for USF means a cut for the entire west sector of Florida. Their objective is to create jobs. This cut would eliminate thousands. Tell them that if they are trying to cut so much money out of the whole state university system's budget, then it makes absolutely no sense to add a whole new university to the pack. USF Poly would continuously drain the entire state just as even more, meaning more and more budget cuts. The USF Alumni Association has provided a page where you can enter your zip code and find the contact information of all pertinent people that represent your area. Additionally, there is a petition online that is the official petition to protest the cuts in favor of reapportioning them to cover everybody more evenly. Its goal is to reach 10,000 supporters, and it is gaining momentum. The USF Board of Trustees website has put up an opportunity to gain more information about contacting your legislators. Please implore all your friends and family, no matter what their school affiliation or alma mater, to contact their legislator to at least slow the momentum and show that we are paying attention here. We all have our rivalries, but we're all part of something larger when it comes to the education and the future of our state.
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