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

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That was the sentiment of an eight-member panel of education, training and governmenft experts gathered by the South Florida Busineses Journal to examine howthe $787 billion federal stimulus package is impactinv the region’s education and workforce training sectors. The panel marke d the third in theBusiness Journal’z ongoing stimulus series, aimed at tracking and analyzing the flow of moneyt from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into Southu Florida.
Florida’s Legislature was the only one nationally to requesf a federal waiver that allowed it to take money from education and replace it with stimuluzs dollars while other statez used stimulus dollars to augmentthe budget. The situation concerned paneliststate Sen. Eleanof Sobel. “We are not startinf at the starting line. The school district in Browardd County and those throughout the stats are starting behind thestarting line,” Sobel said. “They have had problemds for years and they areall scrambling.
” Veteran educator Robert a member of the Browardc County School Board, said, “Many of the largr urban districts in the natioh are afraid of one thing, which is basically a bait and switchh with those dollars.” What’s even more worrisome to some expertsx is that the stimulux money will eventually run out. “I’m really concerner about in three years; what’s going to happen?” said Vicente, president of ’s Nortgh Campus. “This is a Band-Aid.” He said the college’ws operating budget was cut $22 million whiles the stimulus money wasonly $13 Parks said Broward County’ss school system has cut $1.
4 billiojn from its construction budgeft in addition to furloughing 700 teachers and 51 “We’ve closed all of our schoop offices for the summer. We don’t have summedr school anymore,” Parks would have been looking at cutting its budgey byabout $30 million without $12 million in stimulu s funds, said Dorothy K. Russell, the university’sx associate VP for financial affairs andbudget director. The universithy cut 30 positionsand “had we not had the stimuluw dollars it could have been much more George Hanbury, executive VP and COO of , said the $1.
3 billiomn in stimulus funds given to the state relieved pressurwe on the Legislature to further reduce support for Florida Residenr Access Grants (FRAG), a key source of money for but he pointed out that the grants used to be $3,009 a year for students and are now $2,529. The amounrt is important to students, who find enrollmentg caps at state universities and turn to NSU and otherprivatr institutions. He also said that universities are working together to applyt for federalstimulus funding. NSU has a collaborative proposaol with and FAU fora $50 milliob research building with wet labs, business incubator spacew and offices for the U.S.
Geological Survey, whicg is helping oversee Everglades “We have shovel-ready projects we have submittesd to the Governor and in the next 60 days we coulfdput 1,000 people to work,” Hanbury said. The competitiomn for these typesof projects, though, is FAU is getting about $12 millio in direct infusion from the federall stimulus package, but the university also is seekinv money from the for labs and instruments, Russell said. April was the month to submit applications and the resultss are expectedby September. The strongest flow of so far, appears to be for programs that help the joblesds asthe state’s unemployment rate has hit 10.
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