Students faculty and administration met today at the University of Florida for a General Assembly to discuss the uncertain future of UF's

budget. A reserve that in June 2011 totaled $111-million dollars is what UF PhD student Rob Short suggests as being the best option to pull UF out of their financial hole.

"The way to solve the problem as it was handed to us by the legislature is not closing departments and closing libraries and laying off

TA's and laying off staff, and sending international students back home when they were promised an education here. The way that we

need to do that is is to use our reserves in order to cover the budgetary shortfall. So we can keep our existing commitments and we

can maintain the level of academic excellence that we are already famous for here at UF." 

    Over $40 million dollars has been taken out of the reserve since last year to try and offset the cuts. In an attempt to soften the blow

of a smaller budget, UF dropped plans last month to make major cuts to the Computer Information and Science Engineering

Department in favor of planning an alternative. This is around the same time that Governor Rick Scott vetoed a bill that would have

allowed UF to raise  tuition above the 15% annual cap. That's a cap that Bernie Machen intends to present to the legislature again next

year. On June 7th and 8th the UF Board of Trustees will meet to vote on the University budget proposals that will go into effect

starting next fiscal year, July 1st. Chris Gilmore TV20 news.