June 26, 2008

In our efforts to communicate the latest budget developments here and in Tallahassee in a timely manner, the university is disseminating weekly budget updates from President Modesto A. Maidique. These communiques are sent to our students, faculty and staff, alumni, donors, FIU Board of Trustees, Foundation Board of Directors, President's Council, select media, elected officials and other interested parties. We believe that timely information on a topic of such critical importance will benefit the entire university community and help to continue the university's forward momentum.
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In This Issue:

Dear members of the university community:

As we move forward with the implementation phase of FIU’s three-year budget reduction plan, I wish to assure everyone that I will continue to keep the community informed of significant changes in the university budget.

Last week I shared with you the news that Governor Charlie Crist signed a bill giving us the authority to charge a tuition differential based on criteria related to the strength of our research efforts. This bill allows us to raise tuition by a maximum of 15 percent a year, potentially increasing our budget by another $2 million for this year.

That announcement was followed by an article in The Miami Herald and other news reports that may have inadvertently given the impression that the tuition differential will help close the budget shortfall.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, our budget shortfall has actually increased in the last two weeks. As I communicated last week, Florida Power & Light has announced a potential increase of up to 24 percent and the Governor’s Office informed us that universities will now receive only 96 percent of the budget allocation signed by Governor Charlie Crist. This additional 4 percent budget shortfall – $8 million a year – and the possibility that anticipated Lotto revenue might not materialize makes it imperative that we move forward with the budget-reduction plan as it was presented and approved at the June 12 Board of Trustees meeting.

Because the university is instituting a 6 percent undergraduate tuition increase this fall, the most we could raise tuition under the differential tuition provision would be an additional 9 percent – and only if approved by our Board of Trustees when they meet on July 7. The tuition dollars would go toward the enhancement of advising services, hiring undergraduate faculty and other critical measures that will improve the quality of direct undergraduate instruction and support services. The 9 percent increase would affect only those students who enrolled after July 1, 2007, and would not impact students who had prepaid contracts in effect before that date.

The inclusion of FIU in the tuition differential bill is significant. It is tacit recognition that we are one of the top research universities in the state, along with UF, FSU, USF and UCF. Thanks to the Legislature, the governor and our friends in the community, this recognition moves us forward in our drive to become one of the top urban public research universities in the country.

Carpool program

In other noteworthy news, I am pleased to announce the July 1 roll-out of Greenride™, the latest initiative of the President’s Climate Commitment Task Force. A web-based enterprise, Greenride™ is essentially a next-generation carpool program. It will be available only to FIU students, faculty and staff. The software, which allows participants to register confidentially, will search the database for a carpool match based upon the list of preferences each participant enters and send an email to possible partners (built-in security features protect specific personal information.) As an added bonus, the software automatically tracks environmental savings, health savings and financial savings from a personal and university-wide perspective.

With the price of oil setting near-daily records, FIU’s Greenride™ program is a viable alternative to rising prices at the pump. It is also a major step forward in our university’s commitment to achieving climate neutrality. I applaud the work of the committee and hope that many of you will participate in this new initiative. This program will only succeed with the active participation of the FIU community.

As always, please send me your thoughts to presmail@fiu.edu

Links of interest

FIU's Go Green Initiative
http://gogreen.fiu.edu