Florida taxpayers will help fund a lavish pay package for a new university president

A last-minute measure would let Florida A&M University trustees spend extra public money on a nearly $900,000 pay package for the Ron DeSantis-backed telecom lobbyist picked to be school president.

This is Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to producing original journalism — and lifting up the work of others — about Florida politics, with an emphasis on the ways that big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state. Seeking Rents is produced by veteran investigative journalist Jason Garcia, and it is free to all. But please consider a voluntary paid subscription, if you can afford one, to help support our work. And check out our video channel, too.

Florida lawmakers are going to slip a last-minute provision into the new state budget to help cover a nearly $900,000 pay package for the Ron DeSantis-aligned telecom lobbyist who was just named the next president of Florida A&M University — despite a groundswell of opposition from students and alumni at the state’s only public historically Black university.

The eleventh-hour measure would allow FAMU’s board of trustees to ignore a state law that caps the amount of public money universities can spend on salaries — all in order to pay Marva Johnson, the Charter Communications lobbyist and Republican activist who was selected last month to be FAMU’s next school president.

The language — which Republican leaders in the Florida Legislature revealed Friday evening, moments before concluding negotiations on a $115 billion state budget — would also let FAMU trustees dip into school reserves to cover Johnson’s compensation package, which could reach roughly $840,000 in the first year.

The governor-appointed board picked Johnson over three other finalists, despite intense criticism from students and alumni who nicknamed her “MAGA Marva.” Johnson is a longtime Republican leader in Florida, having served as chair of the state Board of Education under former Gov. Rick Scott, on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ transition team, and on the host committee for Jacksonville’s bid for the Republican National Convention in 2020.

The selection is part of a systematic — and rapidly accelerating — effort by the DeSantis administration and other right-wing leaders to exert explicit control over Florida’s public colleges and universities and turn them into partisan instruments of the state.

FAMU trustees last week approved a five-year contract for Johnson that calls for a $650,000 base salary, plus up to $86,000 in annual bonuses, up to $300,000 in retention bonuses, a car allowance, and guaranteed job on the FAMU College of Law faculty. FAMU’s own board chair, who voted against the agreement, called it a “sweetheart deal of sweetheart deals,” according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

But public universities are forbidden by state law from spending more than $200,000 in public funds on a president’s salary. And FAMU’s private fundraising foundation has not yet budgeted the money needed to cover the remainder of her pay package — and some school alumni, still opposed to Johnson’s appointment, don’t want the foundation to cover it.

At least one DeSantis appointee on the FAMU board of trustees has threatened to have the FAMU Foundation decertified if it does not come through the with the rest of the money for her salary.

In the meantime, though, Republican leaders in Tallahassee are racing in to let the school use more public money to cover Johnson’s compensation this year. The provision allowing the school to ignore the $200,000 spending cap — and to tap into reserves and other unspent funds for presidential “remuneration” — will be tucked into Senate Bill 2502, a 155-page piece of legislation tied to the state budget known as the “implementing bill.”

Florida lawmakers are expected to cast a final vote on the budget and implementing bill on Monday evening.

The state’s Board of Governors, meanwhile, is will meet June 18 to ratify Johnson’s selection as FAMU president, the final step in the appointment process.