Latest news with #HB1321
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Speaker Perez says 'embarrassing' UF presidential search could have been avoided
The Plaza of the Americas on University of Florida's Gainesville campus (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) The University of Florida presidential search failing in its last minutes could have been avoided if the House had its way this session, Speaker Daniel Perez said Thursday. 'Neither the University of Florida nor the Board of Governors, nor (Santa) Ono would have been in this position,' had HB 1321 been in effect before the presidential search, Perez said during a media availability. Representatives voted 104-8 on that bill this session, which would have repealed the public records exemption on applicants for presidencies at state colleges and universities. The Senate companion bill, SB 1726, cleared all its committees of reference, but the full Senate never considered it. Back to the drawing board: UF presidential finalist nixed for conflicting DEI stances The State University System Board of Governors rejected University of Michigan President Santa Ono during the final phase of the presidential search process this week. The 6-10 vote against Ono followed hours of questions about his conflicting stances on diversity, equity, and inclusion. He was unanimously approved by UF trustees the week before. 'All of the deficiencies that Ono had prior to the presidential search coming to a conclusion, and eventually going before the BOG would have been discovered,' Perez said. 'It was not discovered because no one knew that Ono was the one that was going to be nominated, unanimously approved, and sent to the BOG.' The House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Michelle Salzman, said the measure was about 'transparency, term limiting bureaucrats, and good governance.' Gov. Ron DeSantis said the bill, which included a provision prohibiting his office's involvement in searches, would 'kneecap our ability to hold higher ed accountable.' The law that put secrets in the dark once had the support of Perez. State law, since the signing of SB 520 in 2022, requires university presidential searches to be conducted outside the public eye, none of the applicants known to the public unless part of the 'shortlist' of finalists unveiled in the final phases, and the finalist(s) must be approved by the chair of the Board of Governors. That bill passed the House 86-26, with Perez voting in favor. 'What many fought back on was that the BOG chair had to have the veto power. Well, he had the veto power. He never used it. And then here we are with a presidential candidate for a major university, flagship university for the state of Florida, in a very embarrassing moment for the entire state of Florida, something that should have been avoided, could have been avoided,' Perez said. UF has twice, consecutively, named a sole finalist despite the 'shortlist' language in law. Perez said the school will have a problem trying to find a president now that the 'process is flawed.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Opponents of the House proposal have said keeping searches confidential initially prevents a candidate's current employer from discovering their employee is applying for a new job. That, in turn, encourages more candidates to apply. Senate President Ben Albritton doesn't see the issue as clearly as Perez. Albritton replied to Perez's comments in his own media availability held about an hour after Perez's. 'I'm not sure it would have' avoided Ono's rejection, Albritton said. 'One way to look at it would be that way. Another way to look at it would say that the system worked.' Albritton added: 'I applaud the Speaker and the House for taking it head on. It's a complicated situation. Let's keep talking about it.' The Legislature is not poised to address policy issues unrelated to the budget in the final days of its extended session. 'Are there some circumstances where it would be better to have multiple [finalists]? Maybe. Are there some circumstances you're better off to have one? Maybe,' Albritton said. 'I'm not going to give you something definitive at this point.' Perez said he hopes changes can come before any more searches fail. 'The House tried for this to never happen. Yet we were the only ones that believed in that policy. I still believe in that policy,' Perez said. 'Hopefully, now that we have seen this example come to fruition and become a reality, unfortunately, we can now once again have that consideration and that conversation of the policy that the House passed.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House passes university presidential search bill awaiting governor's veto pen
Former University of Florida President Ben Sasse via screenshot from Florida Channel. The product of a secret search, he lasted for less than one year. In the face of a threatened veto from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida House passed a bill Wednesday with widespread member support that would reopen presidential searches to public scrutiny. Representatives voted 104-8 on HB 1321, introduced by Rep. Michelle Salzman and decried by DeSantis, which would repeal the public records exemption on applicants for presidencies at state colleges and universities. 'In summary, this bill is about transparency, term limiting bureaucrats, and good governance,' Salzman said on the House floor Wednesday. The bill would prohibit the governor's office from influencing who might lead the institutions and remove the Board of Governors' required approval of finalists presented by search committees. The bill would leave searches to boards of trustees of individual universities, which typically include more local stakeholders. 'This isn't an attack on the Board of Governors. This isn't an attack on our great governor. This is simply bringing the second largest component of the state budget into the sunshine,' Salzman said. During a news conference about law enforcement in Fort Myers on Wednesday, DeSantis said the bill would 'kneecap our ability to hold higher ed accountable.' 'I don't think that's gonna get on the desk. If it does, we'll invite you all to the ceremony where we'll veto. That's fine, but I don't even think it's gonna get there,' DeSantis said. University presidential search laws are a major topic inside the Florida Capitol SB 1726, the bill's Senate companion with material differences including keeping searches secret, awaits its final committee stop in the Rules Committee. It received unanimous approval in its previous two committee stops. Bills need two-thirds support in each chamber to override a veto. Among the votes against the bill, seven were Republicans: Reps. Kiyan Michael, Patt Maney, Chip LaMarca, Ryan Chamberlin, Mike Caruso, and Tom Fabricio. Rep. John Temple voted late against the bill. Democrat Yvonne Hinson also voted no. Caruso consistently has been willing to stand with the governor while the House has deviated from the executive branch's wishes this session. 'Public colleges and universities are funded by taxpayers from the entire state of Florida, so the state has a vested interest in overseeing leadership choices. Having the State Board of Education approve appointments ensures that presidents are held to statewide priorities, not just internal or local interest,' Caruso, the only representative to speak in opposition to the bill on the floor, said. Caruso made the argument that Salzman's bill 'unravels all the success we've made over the years in higher education,' an argument DeSantis has also made. DeSantis called the bill 'ill-conceived' during a news conference in Pensacola on Tuesday about Hope Florida. While Florida has been ranked the best higher education system in the nation for the last eight years by U.S. News & World Report, presidential searches have faced controversy in recent years. Ben Sasse was the sole finalist announced for the presidency at University of Florida after a secret search. Sasse held the job for less than a year and was criticized for lavish spending while in the office. Florida Atlantic University restarted a secret search after the governor's office tried and ultimately failed to position then-state Rep. Randy Fine for the job. The governor's office reached out to Florida International University to advocate for Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez to take their interim presidency. Former House Speaker Richard Corcoran was named president at New College of Florida, perhaps the first and most widely publicized instance of a DeSantis political ally being named leader of a SUS institution. Among the aforementioned provisions, the bill would impose term limits for the Board of Education, Board of Governors, and university and college trustees and require that members would have to be alumni of the institution or residents of Florida. Reporter Jackie Llanos contributed to this story. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Miami Herald
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Florida House leader says secrecy made hiring university presidents like ‘a spoil system'
Appearing before leaders of the state university system, House Speaker Daniel Perez on Wednesday defended a bill that would repeal a law shielding information about school presidential candidates from public disclosure. Perez equated a 2022 law that provided exemptions to public-records and public-meetings laws for presidential searches to a 'spoil system,' which he said the House bill (HB 1321) seeks to rectify. He also pointed to rules that the university system's Board of Governors approved, including giving its chairman a role in reviewing candidates to become school presidents. 'We cannot reject DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] in the name of meritocracy while replacing it with a spoil system for a select few,' Perez, R-Miami, told the Board of Governors during a meeting at Florida A&M University. 'Unfortunately this board adopted a rule that breaks faith with the spirit of that public-record exemption. Under your rule, the BOG chair can, in the darkness of the search committee process, unilaterally veto candidates without standards or limitations, so that the [university] board of trustees may only pick one candidate.' Board members, who gave Perez time to address them during a discussion about compensating college athletes, did not immediately respond. READ MORE: FIU names Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez president in hasty board vote encouraged by DeSantis Supporters of the 2022 law have argued the exemption was needed to help attract top candidates who might be hesitant to apply for Florida president jobs if their current employers could find out. The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, started moving forward last week. It came after numerous state universities and colleges have hired presidents in recent years and as others conduct searches. In February, former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, was chosen to serve as president of Florida Atlantic University, and former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez was chosen to serve as interim president of Florida International University. Also, University of South Florida President Rhea Law announced last month she will step down. In addition, Florida Polytechnic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida State University, the University of North Florida and New College of Florida have presidents who were appointed since 2021. Meanwhile, in addition to Florida International University, the University of Florida and Florida A&M University are operating with interim presidents. ANALYSIS: New FIU president continues Florida trend of political connections over academic experience In the state college system, Broward College, Northwest Florida State College, South Florida State College and State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota have hired new presidents during the past two years. Also, North Florida College President John Grosskopf announced this month he will step down from his post. Along with repealing the public-records and public-meetings exemption for presidential searches, Salzman's bill would place term limits on members of the Board of Governors, require them to file detailed financial disclosures and eliminate a requirement that presidents selected by university boards of trustees go to the Board of Governors for confirmation. Salzman's bill, which was approved by the House Education Administration Subcommittee, needs to clear the Education & Employment Committee before it could go to the full House. A Senate version (SB 1726) has not been heard in committees.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bringing university president searches out of dark gets unanimous committee OK
Aerial view of the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. (Photo courtesy Dylan Taylor/University of Florida) A measure to lessen gubernatorial influence over university presidential searches received unanimous support in its first committee stop Wednesday. HB 1321 and SB 1726, introduced by Republicans Rep. Michelle Salzman and Sen. Alexis Calatayud, would return the selection process for university and college presidents to more public scrutiny. The bill would strip the State University System's Board of Governors and State Board of Education of their power to approve university and college presidents. The privilege would be solely up to university and college trustees and search committees, which are in-part made up of gubernatorial appointees. 'When we have presidential searches and when we're doing these things, we don't need to be hiding people behind the shade because we're worried about if they win or lose,' Salzman said during a House Education Administration Subcommittee meeting, the first for the bills in either chamber. 'I think that when we create the best university system in the nation, we are creating the world leaders for tomorrow,' Salzman said. 'And by doing so, when we have the leaders of those future world leaders, they should be the best of the best and shouldn't be scared of defeat, they should be willing to stand on the front lines and fight for the students they are willing to represent.' DeSantis installs allies at state universities in purge of 'ideological concepts' As the Phoenix reported last week, the governor has long held sway on presidential searches, although under Gov. Ron DeSantis his political allies have increasingly landed in those positions, including former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University and former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse at University of Florida. In 2022, lawmakers made presidential searches secret. Some Democrats and university faculty at the time opposed the law, concerned it would limit student and faculty input, Politico reported. Proponents argue the law has empowered more people to apply, with Chancellor Ray Rodrigues saying Sasse would not have applied had the search been public. In 2024, lawmakers approved increasing BOG presence on search committees and requiring the chair of the BOG to approve a 'shortlist' of candidates. Some have argued the spirit of the 'shortlist' law has been violated, such as when the University of Florida named a single finalist, former U.S. Sen. and President Ben Sasse, as its shortlist. Since 2023, five of Florida's 12 public universities have hired new presidents — UF, New College of Florida, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida Polytechnic University, and Florida Atlantic University. Four — FIU, UF, the University of South Florida, and Florida A&M University — are in the process of finding new presidents. The governor reached out to FIU to advocate for Nuñez. Earlier, DeSantis reportedly positioned now-state Sen. Randy Fine for FAU's post (although that fell through), and his office guided Sasse to Gainesville, Politico reported. Adam Hasner, former House GOP majority leader, and former House Speaker Richard Corcoran have been named presidents at state institutions since the law changed, too. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Among other changes, the identical bills would prohibit BOG members from sitting on presidential search committees. BOG members would have to live in Florida and make financial disclosures. Democrats told the Phoenix they found the bill 'refreshing' and 'in tension with the governor.' Samique March-Dallas, a finance professor at FAMU, spoke in support of the legislation during the House meeting, saying public searches boost trust. 'A president chosen through a secretive process begins their tenure with a trust deficit,' March-Dallas said. 'By contrast, leaders who emerge from transparent processes arrive with built in faculty support and legitimacy.' March-Dallas applauded the prospect of increasing accountability. 'Accountability ensures that search committees represent our different perspectives and that final decisions reflect our collective wisdom rather than narrow interests,' she said. 'As faculty members, we are the academic heart of our institutions. We dedicate our careers to rigorous inquiry, evidence-based conclusions and honest pursuit of knowledge,' March-Dallas said. 'These same principles must guide how we select the leadership that will shape our universities' futures.' Salzman said March Dallas's comments are 'exactly the point of the bill.' 'The education system is the second largest component of the state's budget, … therefore the taxpayers should be able to see what's going on,' Salzman said. Rep. Marie Woodson, a Democrat, asked if it was 'an all-American bill?' 'Yes ma'am,' Salzman responded. The proposal would impose term limits on State Board of Education members (two four-year terms), college trustees (eight consecutive years), university trustees (10 consecutive years), and BOG members (one seven-year term). SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Miami Herald
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Spending and secrecy: As conservatives keep challenging DeSantis, Florida wins
We're barely two weeks into the annual meeting of lawmakers in Tallahassee but it's clear the Florida Legislature is continuing its pushback against Gov. Ron DeSantis, a healthy development for democracy in a state where the legislative branch was in lockstep with the governor for far too long. One notable bill, Senate Bill 1726, sponsored by Miami Republican Sen. Alexis Calatayud, would repeal a law signed by DeSantis in 2022 that plunged university presidential searches into secrecy by making the identities of presidential candidates confidential well into the final stages of a search. Under SB 1726, such searches would once again be conducted in the sunshine. The problems with that law were apparent from the get-go, when presidential searches quickly became a fixed game, with DeSantis pushing his political allies to leadership posts at Florida's higher education institutions and only one candidate being forwarded to trustee boards. It was so bad that former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, who helped sponsor the bill, said in 2023 that the legislation had been 'perverted' by those who sought to control the outcome of the searches. For example, when the University of Florida president was chosen in 2022, only one name emerged from the shadows of the secret process, former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. There was also only one finalist put forth in 2023 for South Florida State College, former state Rep. Fred Hawkins, a St. Cloud Republican. Calatayud's bill, which has a House companion bill, HB 1321, filed by Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Cantonment, would put this situation to rights. It would remove the public records and open meetings exemption for presidential applicants at public colleges and universities in Florida. The selections of presidents of public institutions of higher learning would be made in the open once again. That's especially fitting as we mark Sunshine Week, March 16-22, the annual celebration of Florida's open records laws, once lauded as the best in the nation for transparency and accountability in government. Florida taxpayers deserve no less than full transparency on presidential searches. But what makes this bill and others even more notable is that they are being filed by conservatives — often in the name of fiscal responsibility — not the Democrats who have been fighting DeSantis for the past six years. A proposal by Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, adopted on Monday by a Senate committee, is an even more direct challenge to the governor. Bradley successfully amended a Senate bill dealing with ballot initiatives to ban the state from using taxpayer dollars to advocate for or against constitutional amendments. Last year, DeSantis used state resources to campaign against Amendment 3 to legalize recreational marijuana and Amendment 4 to legalize abortion rights (both proposals failed to get the required 60% voter approval). Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, which reports to the governor, even launched a website in opposition to Amendment 4. 'This amendment makes sure that taxpayers don't get the bill for political issue campaigns,' Bradley said, the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau reported. It's unclear how much money the state spent fighting both amendments. That's something the Legislature should investigate now that it has an appetite to oversee spending under the governor. The Florida House has been especially dogged in its scrutiny of DeSantis. Under Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican, the chamber has readopted its role as a a check on the executive branch. And lawmakers are doing so with very public questioning of some of the DeSantis administration's officials. A House committee recently grilled a Department of Management Services deputy secretary over why four of its employees did not live in Florida, including the state chief data officer, who earns $200,000 a year. The agency spent $60,000 on travel expenses for those employees, including for their trips to Tallahassee, Politico reported. Additionally, House members have criticized the agency for not being able to tell how many cars the state owns. There's also legislation this year that would impact one of DeSantis' most high-profile appointees, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. House Bill 1445 — filed by Central Florida Republican Rep. Debbie Mayfield — would prohibit agency heads from living in a county different than the one where their agency is based. Ladapo has said he lives in Pinellas County, not Tallahassee, according to Politico. A somewhat adversarial relationship between a governor and the Legislature is healthy. If the outcome is a more transparent government free of cronyism, then Florida wins. Click here to send the letter.
