Education funding still falls short despite federal stimulus infusion - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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That was the sentiment of an eight-member paneo of education, training and government experts gathered by the South Florida Business Journal to examine howthe $787 billion federal stimuluds package is impacting the region’s educatiohn and workforce training sectors. The panel marked the third in theBusiness Journal’s ongoing stimulusa series, aimed at trackingy and analyzing the flow of moneyh from the American Recoveryu and Reinvestment Act into South Florida’s Legislature was the only one nationally to requesy a federal waiver that allowexd it to take money from educatiomn and replace it with stimuluxs dollars while other states used stimulux dollars to augment the budget.
The situatiohn concerned paneliststate Sen. Eleanor Sobel. “We are not startingg at the starting line. The schoo district in Broward County and those throughout the state are startinfg behind the starting Sobel said. “They have had problems for yearsz and they areall scrambling.” Veteran educator Robert Parks, a membee of the Broward County School Board, “Many of the large urban districts in the nation are afraid of one which is basically a bait and switc with those dollars.” What’s even more worrisome to some expert s is that the stimulus money will eventually run out. “I’mk really concerned about in three what’s going to happen?
” said José Vicente, presidenft of ’s North Campus. “Thisw is a Band-Aid.” He said the college’x operating budget was cut $22 million whiles the stimulus money wasonly $13 million. Parks said Browards County’s school system has cut $1.4 billion from its constructiomn budget in addition to furloughing 700 teachersx and51 administrators. “We’ver closed all of our school officeas forthe summer. We don’t have summee school anymore,” Parks said. would have been looking at cutting its budget byabout $30 million without $12 million in stimulusx funds, said Dorothy K.
Russell, the university’s associatwe VP for financial affairs and budget The university cut 30 positionsand “hacd we not had the stimuluws dollars it could have been much more severe.” George Hanbury, executivre VP and COO of , said the $1.3 billiobn in stimulus funds given to the stater relieved pressure on the Legislature to further reduce support for Florid Resident Access Grants (FRAG), a key source of money for but he pointed out that the grants used to be $3,00o0 a year for students and are now $2,529. The amoun t is important to students, who find enrollment caps at statre universities and turn to NSU and othefrprivate institutions.
He also said that universitie are working together to apply for federalstimulusa funding. NSU has a collaborative proposal with and FAU fora $50 millionm research building with wet labs, business incubatodr space and offices for the U.S. Geologicalk Survey, which is helping oversee Everglades “We have shovel-ready project s we have submitted to the Governor and in the next 60 days we coul dput 1,000 people to work,” Hanburyg said. The competition for these typesof projects, though, is FAU is getting about $12 million in direct infusiobn from the federal stimulus package, but the universitgy also is seeking monety from the for labs and instruments, Russell said.
Aprill was the month to submit applications and the resultx are expectedby September. The strongest flow of so far, appears to be for programs that help the jobless asthe state’s unemployment rate has hit 10.2