Legislative Report

Attached is a brief end-of-session report on the legislature prepared by Dr. Bill Mullowney. We had a very good legislative session, as you will see. This will enable us to adopt a solid budget at the June meeting of the Board of Trustees. I will share more as the budget shapes up over the next two to three weeks.

2005 Session Report

Meanwhile, I will mention just a couple of thoughts on our political situation.

When I came to Valencia five and a half years ago, it wasn't difficult to identify two serious and longstanding resource issues. The lack of a formula to distribute state funds among the 28 community colleges had led to great inequities in funding, with Valencia at the bottom of the barrel. In addition, the college was severely short of space and the state had no plans to remedy this situation.

The solutions to both of these problems were essentially political. We needed a formula in the Florida statutes with the budget support of the Governor and legislature that would restore equity to funding. We also needed accelerated facility funding to Valencia.

I am very gratified to say that these issues have both been addressed. To be sure, there is plenty more money to flow, but an equitable funding formula is now in statute and we have had two years of solid funding. We need three to four more years of such funding to fully restore health to our finances, but the outlook is promising. We also have been able to add some 450,000 square feet of new assignable classroom and other space to the college in the past five years. Further, this session provided accelerated funding to Building Ten, West, which will be the largest building constructed by Valencia and enable the renewal of the laboratory sciences and other programs on that campus. Finally, the legislature approved increases in the Capital Improvement Fee that will provide nearly $60 million in additional capital funding over the next eight to ten years. This proposal came directly from Valencia, but will benefit all of the 28 colleges in the system.

These successes have required a great deal of time and effort in Tallahassee and at home. Many of you have helped by working in campaigns, joining and serving in the Florida Association of Community Colleges (our only legal vehicle for funding lobbying), communicating with your representatives, etc. In particular, Dr. Bill Mullowney has done remarkable work in advocacy of the mission and work you pursue every day. Others have made it possible for me to serve in statewide leadership on these issues by picking up the slack for me here. I'm more than ready to hand that torch to another president now, but proud and grateful for what we have accomplished.

Most of all, it has been helpful to remember, the only reason any of this matters is to enable your direct efforts to create a powerful, engaging, and high performance learning environment for our students.

Thanks for all you do.

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