Gov. Rick Scott signed the state’s $74 billion budget for the next fiscal year Monday. He also vetoed $400 million in projects.
Among the cuts: millions of dollars for Florida Gulf Coast University’s unfinished Renewable Energy Research Institute.
FGCU has been working to get the research institute up and running. It is supposed to be a partnership between the school, the community and private industry.
Scott and the Florida Legislature awarded FGCU $4.9 million last year to plan what the school calls its “Innovation Hub.” The “I-Hub” is aimed at fostering research and creating internships for students in the renewable energy sector in Southwest Florida.
The school broke ground on the project last year, but now FGCU’s President, Wilson Bradshaw, said it will be hard to move the project forward because of Governor Scott’s line item veto of the funding. The $7.5 million was supposed to go to FGCU for developing the I-Hub.
“We will continue to do the design, work on it, but for all practical purposes in-- terms of construction or further development-- it is at a standstill,” he said.
Bradshaw said he’s extremely disappointed.
“The I-Hub was a top priority of ours this year,” he said. “The Legislature saw the merit of that project and it was a priority for them. So, everyone was on board with it, except for the governor who saw fit not to fund it.”
Bradshaw said he’s “perplexed” as to why the funding was vetoed because he said the school provided all the information Scott’s office requested.
Governor Scott told a reporter with Bloomberg News he vetoed the funding because of a “lack of demand by local companies."
