Details make Florida Polytech look even worse (JD Alexander's Rick Scott-approved pet project)

[seafan]

Will a member of the Board of Governors stand up? Bob Graham is showing us the way to proceed.



In today's Tampa Bay Times:


May 24, 2012

The folly of immediately creating a new public university to satisfy one powerful state lawmaker was obvious enough when the Legislature approved it and Gov. Rick Scott signed off. Now terrible public policy is morphing into absurd reality as education officials wrestle with the details of winding down the University of South Florida's Lakeland campus and creating the new Florida Polytechnic from scratch. The closer you look, the worse it gets.

On Wednesday, a select committee of the Board of Governors started trying to make sense out of the mess created by the governor and the Legislature. It's one thing for Senate Budget Committee Chairman JD Alexander to insist upon a new university that the state does not need and cannot afford. It's another to look behind the new law that establishes Florida Polytech on July 1 and see how Alexander conned his legislative colleagues and the governor into believing in a fantasy.

.....

No buildings. No faculty. No accreditation. No students. Six months or more to find a president, after first trying to seat a board of trustees to choose that president.

If the timeline is unrealistic, the cost to taxpayers for Alexander's parting gift is an outright lie. More than $50 million has been allocated this year and next in the state budget, but that doesn't begin to cover the expenses that already are piling up. The $10 million earmarked to USF to keep teaching its remaining students in Lakeland next year is millions short. Construction on the first phase of Florida Polytech's fanciful campus is projected to be over budget by perhaps $14 million. Architectural fees alone are up to more than $12 million. With Alexander thankfully term-limited out of office, will the governor and the Legislature keep throwing millions into this money pit while the 11 established universities are starved to death?

There has got to be a better way. Former Gov. Bob Graham led the drive for the constitutional amendment that created the Board of Governors to oversee the state university system. The board is supposed to set higher education policy and serve as a firewall to prevent legislators from building unneeded medical schools or new universities as monuments to themselves. Graham said this week that the Legislature's creation of Florida Polytech violates the amendment approved by voters and is unconstitutional. The appropriate plaintiff to file that lawsuit, he suggested, would be a member of the Board of Governors whose authority has been usurped.

It only takes one board member to say "enough" and ask the courts to stop this nonsense. It only takes one with the courage to stand up for Floridians who don't want their millions wasted on a pretend university.

The backstory here.

Gov Rick Scott approves bill creating Florida Polytechnic University, April 20, 2012

Will Rick Scott veto JD Alexander's legislative bullying to get his 'legacy university'?, April 14, 2012

(Nope.)

'JD Alexander is the face of what's wrong with Florida', March 4, 2012





Will a member of the Board of Governors stand up for the people of Florida?


This unconstitutional debacle must be turned over to the Courts.


Here is the contact page for the Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida.


We need to encourage them.

[madfloridian]

1. Thanks for that. Recommended.

This was bullied through by Alexander.

[madfloridian]

2. Genshaft says they will leave Polk County. That will cause huge harm to students.

https://twitter.com/madfloridian/status/205730593013633025

[No Elephants]

3. Will anyone on the Board actually sue?

[ellenfl]

4. pls can we vote the bastards out this year? the cravenness

of republicans blows my mind. they are cutting funds to existing schools so they can build this unwanted and unnecessary boondoggle. unfricking-believable.

ellen fl

[seafan]

5. Carl Hiaasen: Hail to our newest campus: Useless State

Thanks, Carl.


Hail to our newest campus: Useless State

By Carl Hiaasen
May 26, 2012

At a time when Florida’s 11 state universities are financially gasping, the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott are throwing $50 million away on a whimsical new school that might as well be called Useless State.
It’s the work of a Lake Wales Republican named JD Alexander, who — sadly for taxpayers — chaired the powerful Senate Budget Committee.

Alexander is leaving the Legislature because of term limits, but as a going-away present he demanded that his colleagues fund a new university in his home district. And then he basically stomped his little feet and held his breath and huffily threatened to gut another school’s budget if he didn’t get his way.

.....

Normally the (Board of Governors) would have been deeply involved with the birth of the new school — an authority granted by voters in a constitutional amendment. The whole point was to avoid such costly debacles, and to buffer higher education from the influence of grimy politics.

.....

Only a coldblooded cynic would wonder if Alexander or any of his pals will benefit from the gush of taxpayer funds being used to construct Useless State.
A court could stop the bleeding, but in the meantime applications are being taken for the make-believe school’s Board of Trustees.

.....

There is a growing crowd of coldblooded cynics down here in Florida.