Opinion: Deadbeat legislators

Some generous people are willing to bestow millions of their own dollars upon Florida's public universities, but state government is too cheap and shameless to hold up its end of the bargain. What does it take to embarrass this state's Legislature?

The debt to these donors and their favored universities now stands at $105.2-million and is tied to a promise made in law in 1978. That's the year the state set up a program to encourage private philanthropy to public universities by pledging to match large donations with state dollars. "It's one of the most effective programs the state has ever had," says St. Petersburg donor Bill Emerson, 81, who retired as senior vice president and national sales director from Merrill Lynch. "You think people aren't attracted by that kind of bargain?"

But, as Times higher education writer Anita Kumar reports, the promise has become a lie. The debt has mounted as the state, which already ranks dead last in per-student university spending, has turned its back on donors as well. In the past three years, the state allocation for such university matching grants has dropped from $50.1-million to $12.4-million, and this year Gov. Jeb Bush is proposing only $1.7-million.

This default affects more than just the 500 donations that are currently at risk. It also sends a discouraging message to future donors. As Kay Ustler of Orlando said of her $2.25-million pledge for building renovations at the University of Florida: "It's just gotten so frustrating because I went into this thing with so much excitement. . . . I just don't understand. You just think you wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth."

That's what Florida is doing, and, at a Board of Education meeting last week, education commissioner Jim Horne all but shrugged his shoulders. The governor's proposed budget asks the university system next year to accept a cut of $146-million (counting new scholarship responsibilities), and Horne seemed unmoved. "They're uniquely positioned to fund and pick up the slack through other sources of revenues," Horne said. "They're probably in the best position, of any part of the education family, to take a cut."

One of those "other sources" is the private giving the state is now discouraging by acting like a deadbeat dad. At the same time Florida is giving $50-million a year to offset, dollar-for-dollar, the corporate donations for private school vouchers, it won't even keep its word to match the genuine philanthropy toward universities. How can lawmakers defend this?

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