Florida's Board of Governors will begin discussing plans today for the state's spring legislative session, including finding a chancellor in time to lead the board during the 60-day session.
In its meeting at the University of South Florida, the leaders of the State University System will discuss what to do about Chancellor Mark Rosenberg's impending resignation and consider approving each university's requests from the Public Education Capital Outlay fund, or PECO.
Board members, who oversee Florida's 11 public universities, will consider today each university's PECO requests, which provide funding for planning and constructing buildings.
Each university has compiled a prioritized list of PECO projects for the next three years, beginning with 2009-2010, and submitted that list to the Board of Governors.
PECO is a statewide trust fund for construction at public schools, community colleges and universities.
The money in the PECO fund comes primarily from the sales of bonds, which is tied into the gross receipts tax on utilities. If the amount of money from this tax increases, then proceeds from the sales of bonds will be greater, and the PECO fund will grow.
This year, utility costs have gone up around the state, so the amount of money from the tax - and thus the size of the PECO fund - should grow, said Ed Poppell, UF's vice president for business affairs.
In anticipation of the increase in PECO funding, UF is requesting about $145.8 million from 2009-2012 - the highest of the requests - according to a spreadsheet summarizing each university's priorities.
UF's first PECO request for 2009-2010 is for $15 million to keep current UF facilities up and running.
After that, UF is asking for $22.5 million to build a chemistry and chemical biology building.
Poppell said this building would provide more labs and general space for the chemistry program.
Poppell said UF received PECO funding last year to begin planning the building, which may be completed around January 2011.
He said UF also hopes to receive initial planning money for a water, land and plant resources building, which would bring current faculty members working on this type of research and place them under one new roof.
The board will also plan for a new chancellor.
Rosenberg, who led the board since 2005, said Monday that he will resign in February. He plans to join the faculty of Florida International University, where he served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs for more than seven years.
Bill Edmonds, the board's spokesman, said he could not imagine the board not discussing what he called the "unexpected issue" of Rosenberg's resignation.
"I think that will probably be the key question," Edmonds said. "How will they do the search, and is there enough time to get it accomplished before Chancellor Rosenberg leaves."
