States getting some money, but not every time

Part of Rick Scott's 7-7-7 Plan to create jobs in the state included the promise that economic development grants would "always include partnerships with universities."

Almost four years in and with a re-election campaign in full swing, PolitiFact Florida decided to check back in on that promise.

The idea here was that pairing universities with businesses would create research clusters that would spark more job growth. We previously said that it would be a challenge to include schools in every single economic development grant. It proved to be an even bigger challenge getting the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity to tell us if that was happening the case.

The governor's office referred us to DEO, which proceeded to give us a total of their budget for state colleges and universities since 2011. Department spokesperson Jessica Sims said more than $35 million had been given to post-secondary institutions for projects and partnerships since then.

The bulk of that total is a $29 million grant over three years to the University of West Florida's Office of Economic Development and Engagement "to aid in job creation and economic diversification within the eight counties most affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill."

Sims also pointed out that "funding for the Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, in partnership with the University of Florida, has also continued to receive state funding, including $5.5 million in funding for the current fiscal year." We knew about that project, to help investors and entrepreneurs identify business opportunities for technology developed through publicly funded research, when we first put this promise on the Scott-O-Meter in January 2012.

So has the state included universities in every grant since then? The DEO refused to say, simply referring back to the aforementioned items.

We originally said that since it was hyperbolic to use the term "always" in this promise, we'd give Scott credit if there was some evidence that universities were consistently included. Even that is hard to prove, although there are some projects that have been funded on a recurring basis.

We'll grade Scott on a curve for this one, because some grant money is clearly going to schools. We call this promise a Compromise.