Thursday, February 28, 2008

Haridopolos Hates Honesty, Ethics, UF, Students, Taxpayers

Mike Haridopolos paints himself as a person who hates waste and fights wasteful government spending. He's a liar.

A few years back, Haridopolos somehow "earned" himself a full-time salary at Brevard Community College to write a book he doesn't appear to have actually written. Over four years, he amassed $160k in salary for apparently doing nothing. $40k a year is a moderate salary at a school like that -- moderate if you are actually doing the job. When you aren't doing the job, it's government-funded waste.

Now Haridopolos has "earned" himself a full-time "lecturer" gig at the University of Florida. One he isn't qualified for and one he won't really have to do -- during the Spring semester he won't have to teach because of the session. During Summer semester, he won't have to teach. So for one semester a year, he'll teach a few classes and do no research and he'll get paid nearly $30k more than the professors there who are actually doing the job and have the credentials.

Haridopolos claimed he was working on a PhD at the University of Arkansas -- a PhD is usually one of the basic requirements to get a job like this -- but apparently that was a lie, too, since he hasn't been enrolled there since 2000.

At a time when Florida's colleges and universities are in financial crises and many are turning away students, t his kind of wasteful political spending should not just be unethical, it should illegal.

I wonder if he'd gotten this latest deal if he wasn't in line to be Senate president? Using your political position to enhance your own personal wealth at the expense of the taxpayers, while offering nothing in return is the height of unethical behavior. Haridopolos seems to have mastered it.

5 comments:

PapaNGoogie said...

This is one of many outrages!

PapaNGoogie said...

Now it's revealed that Haridopolos had a cushy deal with his employer, Brevard Community College, to the tune of $150,000 to write a book.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-bookdeal0708apr07,0,6074368.story


Must be sweet....what are the statistics of a community college instructor getting such a deal?

Professor Rex said...

Speaking as a community college professor, I'm going to go ahead and say it's close to 0%.

Anonymous said...

who better to teach a political science class then a politician with real world experience. He is a excellent teacher

Professor Rex said...

That's ridiculous. Political scientists study politicians, they aren't politicians without degrees or training in the field. A partisan operative with no academic background in the field should not be allowed to do this, particularly at this pay rate, which is an insult to professionals in the field. You wouldn't want a doctor who had no training in the field, why a political scientist? And saying that a person in politics would be a good teacher of political scientist is like saying that a car would be a great teacher for a class in automobile repair.