In his first 12 (of 17) months as president of the University of Florida, former Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse spent three times as much money as his predecessor, President Kent Fuchs, did in his last year. And how do we know this? Because of the student newspaper, the independent Florida Gator.
How much money? $17.3 million v $5.6 million. No small change, that.
A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.
Sasse’s consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse’s ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers…
Amid protests over his conservative track record as a Nebraska Republican senator, Sasse promised during his ascension to the UF presidency in Fall 2022 that he would divorce himself from partisan politics under what he called a vow of “political celibacy.”
But the senator-turned-university president quietly broke that promise in his 17-month term at the university’s helm, hiring six ex-Senate staffers and two former Republican officials to high-paying, remote jobs at the university.
Sasse abruptly resigned last month.
Read the entire expose by fourth-year journalism student Garrett Shanley
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com