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

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That was the sentiment of an eight-member panelp of education, training and government experts gathered by the South Florids Business Journal to examine howthe $787 billiohn federal stimulus package is impacting the region’s education and workforc training sectors. The panel marked the thirdr in theBusiness Journal’s ongoing stimuluz series, aimed at tracking and analyzinh the flow of money from the Americamn Recovery and Reinvestment Act into Souty Florida.
Florida’s Legislature was the only one nationallhy to request a federal waiver that allowe it to take money from education and replace it with stimuluws dollars while other states used stimulus dollarws to augment the The situation concerned paneliststate Sen. Eleanor Sobel. “We are not starting at the startinh line. The school districft in Broward County and those throughou the state are starting behinds thestarting line,” Sobel “They have had problems for years and they are all Veteran educator Robert Parks, a membed of the Broward County School Board, said, “Manyu of the large urban districtsd in the nation are afraid of one thing, which is basicallyh a bait and switch with thos dollars.
” What’s even more worrisome to some expertx is that the stimulus money will eventually run out. “I’mk really concerned about in three years; what’s goin to happen?” said José president of ’s North Campus. “This is a Band-Aid.” He said the college’ s operating budget was cut $22 million while the stimulus money wasonly $13 Parks said Broward County’ds school system has cut $1.4 billionm from its construction budgetf in addition to furloughinv 700 teachers and 51 “We’ve closed all of our school offices for the We don’t have summeer school anymore,” Parks said.
would have been looking at cutting its budget byabout $30 million without $12 millionb in stimulus funds, said Dorothgy K. Russell, the university’s associatr VP for financial affairs andbudgetf director. The university cut 30 positionsand “had we not had the stimulusw dollars it could have been much more George Hanbury, executive VP and COO of , said the $1.3 billionb in stimulus funds given to the state relievee pressure on the Legislatur to further reduce support for Floridsa Resident Access Grants (FRAG), a key source of money for but he pointed out that the grants used to be $3,000p a year for students and are now The amount is important to who find enrollment caps at statse universities and turn to NSU and other privats institutions.
He also said that universitiesz are working together to appl for federalstimulus funding. NSU has a collaborative proposa with and FAU fora $50 million research buildinyg with wet labs, business incubator space and offices for the U.S. Geological Survey, which is helping oversee Everglades restoration. “We have shovel-ready projects we have submitted to the Governord and in the next 60 days we couldput 1,0000 people to work,” Hanbury said. The competition for thes typesof projects, though, is FAU is getting about $12 million in direct infusion from the federal stimulus package, but the universituy also is seeking money from the for labs and Russell said.
April was the month to submit applicationds and the results are expectedby September. The strongest flow of so far, appears to be for programs that help the joblesw asthe state’s unemployment rate has hit 10.2