Florida to rescue ‘essential' online education programs after veto

TALLAHASSEE — “Essential” pieces of a $29.4 million education program vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis will survive and be transferred from the University of West Florida.

The emergency rescue, which sidesteps Florida law and suggests that state officials were unprepared for the far-reaching fallout of the veto, was announced by the State University System Board of Governors and UWF just hours before the cuts took hold at midnight Tuesday.

The Complete Florida Plus Program in its current form will be dismantled. Programs deemed essential will be recreated under a new name, allowing the state to get around a law that put UWF in charge of the program and another that restricts spending on vetoed programs.

Without action, the governor's veto would have disconnected critical services like online library resources used by K-12 students, colleges, and universities across Florida as the state continues to battle economic and health crises triggered by a surge in Covid-19 infections.

Complete Florida, for now, will be kept afloat by reserve funding — the same pool of money state auditors said UWF had improperly tapped from state library resources, eventually leading the Department of Education and governor’s office to seek a change in leadership.

“We are confident that new management will improve oversight and decision-making processes,” the BOG said in a written statement issued late Tuesday.

UWF and the governor’s office signed off on the transition, noting that online education services will be the financial priority.

DeSantis spokesperson Helen Aguirre Ferré said “leftover rolled over funds” will allow the program to continue to operate until the transition.

The board will work with UWF and the Florida Department of Education, the agency that oversees the Florida College System, to move “essential” Complete Florida programs from UWF’s control. The board did not specify which services are considered essential and said more details will be provided in the coming months. It isn't known where the programs will be housed.

Programs like the $3 million initiative that helps former college students return to school to complete their degree are at risk of being cut.

The transition plan sends Florida into murky legal territory.

State law prohibits the governor, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, and state agencies from authorizing expenditures for programs that were part of a vetoed appropriation.

And transferring Complete Florida away from UWF would conflict with a law that put the university in charge of that program and the Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative, which provides online access to 17 million books to 1.3 million students, faculty and staff.

Complete Florida will survive on $9.8 million in carry-forward accounts, the equivalent of about a third of its budget, according to UWF records. State auditors in March said UWF should repay Complete Florida $2.4 million in carry-forward cash that the university improperly pulled from the program's accounts, which could provide additional dollars.

State University System Chancellor Marshall Criser on Wednesday asked UWF to refrain from spending carry-forward dollars without first consulting system officials.

That way, the system “can ensure the carry forward funds are expended on services that are identified as essential going forward and that you provide an accounting of the funds that are currently encumbered,” Criser wrote in a letter to UWF leaders.

While university officials scramble to reconfigure the program, some 150 employees in Tallahassee, Gainesville and Pensacola are in limbo. Program staffers had not received termination notices as of Wednesday, according to UWF officials.

Gary Fineout contributed to this report.