By Ron Word
Capitol correspondent
Sunday, March 28, 2010

TALLAHASSEE — How will Florida’s state universities fare in this year’s Legislature? About halfway through the session, there’s no clear indication.

The three versions of Florida’s higher education budgets are widely different, but somewhat alike, and it may not be known until the waning days of the Legislature which one will be the final bill and how much, if any, the budgets will be cut.

None of the bills provides the amount of money the universities would like to have or even makes up the money the schools have lost over the last three years. The state is facing a budget shortfall between $1.2 billion and $3 billion.

The State University System earlier unveiled a plan to increase funding by $350 million a year until 2015, totaling $1.75 billion in what was called the New Florida Initiative.

The $7 billion higher education bill before the Senate is a slight increase over last year’s $6.7 billion budget. It provides an increase to the State University System of $128 million to $3.54 billion, or 3.8 percent over the current year.

Read more at gainesville.com.