Statement to the Board of Trustees
Florida International University
by
The United Faculty of Florida
6/12/09


United Faculty of Florida, UFF, represents the faculty and librarians of FIU.

In April, UFF sent each of you a report about how FIU spends its money. Last week, members of this Board called it “inaccurate” and “subjective.”

Members of the Board, that report was carefully prepared by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP)--based on numbers you provided—through the administrators you have hired. After the study was published, those administrators said the numbers they had given us were wrong. So UFF commissioned RISEP to do the study again, based on numbers the administration now says are accurate. You have that new report.

The new numbers show the same trend that the first numbers did—even though, as the Provost said, the increase was not as steep as the first numbers showed. There has been a steady shift of money and personnel away from academic programs at FIU and into administrative overhead.

Since 2002, FIU’s enrollments have risen about 18%. To teach all those new students, you have budgeted to hire only 3 percent more faculty. But you have somehow found the money to hire 50 percent more administrators. If the ratio of faculty salaries to administrative salaries had simply stayed the same as it was in 2002, more than 17 million additional dollars would be available today for faculty salaries. That is a staggering figure that would more than pay for all the programs we have cut.

Please don’t destroy more academic programs. Rein in administrative overhead. If you must make budget cuts, make them where they will do the least damage to the students FIU was put here to serve.

Contact Us

Chapter President Eric Dwyer
Grievance Chairperson Lauren Christos

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[last updated: June 23 2009]