BUDGET TALKS EDGE FORWARD -- House and Senate negotiators move closer Thursday to crafting a 65 billion austerity budget, one that spares community colleges from the worst of threatened cuts and will likely do the same for state universities. Lawmakers agreed on a 1.1 billion spending plan for community colleges, with the House coming up 141 million from its original offer, and the Senate coming down 21 million. That will cover the average 20-percent explosion in enrollment spurred by the recession, said Rep. Will Weatherford, a Republican from Wesley Chapel who chairs the House community-college spendin committee. "With 10 percent unemployment, people are going back to school," he said. Negotiators also agreed to a 225,000 salary cap for community college presidents, although the schools would be able to augment that with tuition money or proceeds from foundations. The Senate stood its ground, however, refusing to give in to a House proposal to ban using state higher education dollars on travel to "terrorist" nations, including Cuba. On orders from House and Senate leaders, budget negotiators also agreed to slash a $151.7 million trust fund that pays to cleanup gasoline and other petroleum products that threaten drinking water supplies at 5,000 sites throughout the state. 

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UNIVERSITY LEADERS NOW HAIL BUDGETS -- After hearing university presidents decry potentially devastating cuts to their schools, state university officials now say Florida's higher education system is not likely to face deep budget cuts in the next year. "We're really delighted with the progress the Legislature has made toward stabilizing the budget for the university system," said University of North Florida President John Delaney, who is representing the Board of Governors during the legislative session. Assuming the schools increase tuition by 15 percent, the 11 state universities will actually have about 20 million more in 2009-10 than this year -- based on the latest negotiating offers between the House and Senate. Delaney praised lawmakers for largely sparing the system from deep cuts during an extremely difficult budget year, where state revenues dropped by about 25 percent. In fact, Delaney said university leaders were also very pleased with the legislators' support for other major university initiatives, including a bill sent to Gov. Charlie Crist earlier in the week that will let all 11 schools impose up to 15 percent in annual tuition increases until the rates approach the national tuition average for public universities. "This session, if we had money, would have been a great transformation for higher ed," Delaney said, referring to the other university bills backed by the Legislature. The so-called "differential" tuition bill is particularly significant and its impact will become more apparent over the next few years, Delaney said. "It's a watershed bill that probably hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves," he said. The differential tuition will be phased in. It doesn't apply to students who were enrolled before 2007 and would only raise $30 million in the new budget year, which begins July 1. Five years from now, the new tuition program could be yielding as much as

$450 million for the university system, Delaney said. 

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