Though Gov. Charlie Crist would have you believe the state of Florida is not overcome with serious financial difficulties judging by his overly optimistic State of the State speech Tuesday night, a storm is brewing for this legislative session.
And it's not going to be pretty.
While the governor was busy figuring out how to successfully downplay concerns over budget cuts and a softening housing market in his dinnertime debut, state Senate President Ken Pruitt was gearing up to put it all on the table.
In his opening address of the 2008 legislative session, he let voters know that he wants to bring back an elected education commissioner and do away with the university oversight powers of the Board of Governors.
"We are going to leave it to voters," he said. "Do they want an unelected board to set tuition? Or do they want their elected legislators to set it?"
Well, actually, Pruitt, the voters have already decided. But just in case it slipped his mind, we'll give him a quick refresher.
In 2002, voters approved a constitutional amendment creating the Board of Governors to oversee Florida's 11 public universities. The ridiculous power struggle over who has the right to set tuition came to a head when the board unanimously approved a tuition increase to combat the embarrassing student-teacher ratios and retain faculty in the state.
A lawsuit between Pruitt and the board soon followed, and the power has yet to be defined. Unfortunately, by doing the job it was appointed to do and attempting to maintain some standard of quality at Florida's public institutions, the board may have hammered the nails in its own coffin.
The current proposal, which is hard to view as anything more than underhanded revenge, filed by Sen. Lisa Carlton, seeks to reduce the 17-member Board of Governors to just seven. Their job would be limited to "administer the state university system as provided by law."
How conveniently ambiguous.
If the Legislature has its way, there would be no student or faculty voice to weigh in on issues that directly affect them, and that is not any way to run a state university system.
By essentially removing any power the board has, the Legislature would be attempting to drop the enormous responsibility of overseeing higher education in the hands of uninformed officials heavily influenced by public whim.
An independent board should be allowed to set tuition for the very reason elected officials should not.
How could elected officials be expected to resist doing everything they can to keep tuition low when it would look so good on their next election's campaign literature?
Therein lies the problem, but the solution is already in place.
The board's appointed officials - including 14 members appointed by the governor, the Florida commissioner of education, the chair of the advisory council of faculty senates, and the president of the Florida Student Association - have a vested interest in keeping educational quality high, rather than a perceived civic duty to keep costs unreasonably low.
They also happen to know what they're talking about.
We think it's not the wisest choice to allow elected officials whose only educational credentials include certification in wastewater treatment from Indian River Community College - like Pruitt, according to his Senate Web siet - to make complicated, involved decisions about higher education.
If the Legislature strives to create an educational system it can be proud of, it's best to stop trying to figure out what voters want and listen to the message they have already sent.
