Governor Rick Scott's "deer in headlights" expression in the photo at left, typifies his modus operandi since taking office in 2011. Friday, he signed a bill establishing Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland as the twelfth university in the state's system. With a flourish of his pen, Scott circumvented a decision made last year by Polytechnic's Board of Governors. Outgoing Senator JD Alexander bullied them to the point where they would allow the campus to split away from USF Tampa, after meeting certain benchmarks, including a minimum enrollment and accreditation, neither of which have yet been met.
Polytechnic currently operates as a branch of the University of South Florida in Tampa, and its creation as a separate university will adversely affect the money that USF receives. In fact, Scott slashed $300 million from the budgets of the eleven existing universities in the state. Scott tried to reassure taxpayers that “the new university will not result in additional financial strain on the State University System.” Ham on Wry believes that the governor must use voodoo math for his calculations. In order to offset the losses, USF has already announced tuition increases for next year.
Taxpayers and parents of students attending Florida's public universities should remember this when Governor Scott is up for reelection in 2014---not soon enough for this blogger. His actions have vastly favored businesses over citizens, as have those of the Republican-dominated legislature. This latest outrage came in the form of a bill approved by the legislature. Together, the governor and the legislature have decimated fire and police services and educations budgets have suffered as well. We don't have to wait until 2014 to rid ourselves of yahoo legislators. We can do that this November.
One bright spot has emerged from all of this nonsense. Senator Paula Dockery, a Lakeland Republican, said Scott’s pledge to be fiscally accountable to taxpayers “has been irrevocably broken,” by establishing another unnecessary public university. At least one Republican has the good sense to call him out on his ignorance. She deserves a hearty round of applause for her courage in breaking the lock-step mentality in the Republican Party.
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