… updates us on the good ol’ boys and their tricks at Northwest Florida State College.

Quick version: Same old same old. Public universities as ATMs for politicians, businessmen, and on-campus cronies of same.

Only new thing is these boys are going to jail.

UD also thanks Dennis for this update.

Some UD background here.

… of making community colleges the playthings of politicians endures.

Politicians direct money to the colleges, and by way of response the colleges create pretend administrative positions for the politicians that pay them a whole lot of money.

The math’s so simple even UD gets it. Northwest Florida State College gets a $35 million appropriation courtesy of a guy named Sansom, the head of the appropriations committee in the Florida House. In exchange, it gives the guy “a part-time position that paid $110,000, and which was never advertised, nor was anyone else interviewed for it.” So little for so much!

Plus there’s the airport thing.

Sansom secured $6 million for a facility at the Destin airport that the college says will be used as an emergency training center. However, it also is virtually identical to something Panhandle developer and Sansom campaign contributor Jay Odom wanted to build on the same spot to shelter his airplanes during hurricanes. It’s interesting that the state denied the city’s request for funding Odom’s project, but the money materialized when it became a Northwest proposal – Sansom tapped a fund designated for capital projects at colleges.

The guy’s a miracle worker, and you’d have to be pretty smart to see the similarities between the two projects, but I guess the reporter for this here paper figured it out.

And then I guess absolute power corrupts absolutely or however that saying goes, because once Sansom got elevated to Speaker of the House, while keeping his thing at Northwest Florida State College, he got a little arrogant.

Maybe he’d been reading about those real exclusive Palm Beach country clubs Bernard Madoff belonged to…. Whatever the reason, he set up a closed meeting with the College’s trustees in Tallahassee, at a private club which, in the epitome of exclusivity for that part of the state, “overlooks the football stadium on the campus of Florida State University.”

But, you know, trustee meetings are supposed to be public.

… Sansom is a member of the club and the event was booked as the ”Sansom dinner,” not under the Northwest Florida State College trustees.

… The latest disclosure casts new light on one of the controversial elements of Sansom’s relationship with the school, which derailed his tenure as House speaker and triggered a grand jury investigation. Sansom also faces review by a House special investigator and the state Commission on Ethics. [Oh yeah. Forgot to tell you that Sansom has left politics because of some sudden legal difficulties.]

Sansom, R-Destin, has previously described his role in the meeting as a mere participant and said, as the only lawmaker there, that the Sunshine Law on open meetings did not apply to him. The college contends it did not break the law, calling the meeting a legislative briefing.

… But Sansom was the only legislator there and last month, the trustees approved a set of minutes created nearly 10 months after the meeting. [Retroactive minutes. Best kind.]

… As a public school, a meeting of the trustees must be open to the public, which requires advertising the time and place so people can attend. The college did provide public notice, with an ad that was published one week before the meeting, in a newspaper in Okaloosa County, 150 miles from where the meeting took place.

That was Richburg’s idea: ”It’s probably the only way we can do it in privacy but with a public notice here,” he wrote in his e-mail to Sansom….

Old UD sometimes finds herself wondering… What would have happened if these guys had been able to get real college educations? Might they have turned out less stupid?

UD thanks Roy for sending along one of the articles.

The girl can’t help it. She doesn’t understand what conflict of interest is.

Rep. Marti Coley, R-Dist. 7, has no plans to give up her $60,000 job at Chipola College, unlike fellow state legislator and Speaker of the House Ray Sansom, who resigned his post at another college amid criticism about his dual role.

The legislator said she sees no conflict in her two jobs and she’s puzzled by the air of criticism surrounding legislators who also work at Florida colleges.

Coley had worked as an adjunct professor at Chipola for two decades before taking the job she now holds there — special assistant of business and community affairs. Her pay started at $45,000 when she took the postion, but she got a 33 percent raise in July of this year, bringing her salary to $60,000.

Her job entails, among other things, fund-raising activities for the Chipola honors program and the school at large.

… As for speculation that her double service puts Chipola at special advantage come budget time in the legislature, Coley said that’s just not so.

She readily admits to advocating for the school she works for — she sees it as part of her job as a representative of the district where Chipola is located — but said her work on the school’s behalf is above-board and really begins after funding requests have made their way through a certain process.

As a legislator, she said, it would be her duty to advocate for the college, whether she was employed by Chipola or not.

“I represent nine counties, and any entity in that community is going to get 100 percent effort from me in the legislature. Even with budget cuts, we have a very large budget and that money is going somewhere,” she said. …

From Inside Higher Ed:

State Rep. Ray Sansom of Florida announced on the first day of a special legislative session Monday that he would reluctantly give up his $110,000 a year, part-time job with Northwest Florida State College, the Associated Press reported. Sansom, the majority leader in Florida’s House of Representatives, became the latest lawmaker there to generate conflict of interest accusations with jobs at colleges to which they’ve also helped direct funds. Sansom was hired by the college in November as vice president for development and planning, a newly created position that was not publicly advertised, after he helped steer $25.5 million toward Northwest Florida State College during a year when budgets were being cut across the state.

It’s Florida.

It won’t change much of anything.