Former Fla. lieutenant gov. to lead Pa. university system

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Frank T. Brogan, a higher-education executive and former Florida lieutenant governor, was picked today to be the next chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14-university State System of Higher Education.

The system’s board of governors unanimously selected Brogan, a Republican who was Florida’s lieutenant governor from 1999-2003 under then-Gov. Jeb Bush and chancellor of the State University System of Florida since 2009.

Brogan, who also served as president of Florida Atlantic University from 2003 to 2009, will be the fourth chancellor to lead Pennsylvania’s public university system, the 13th largest in the nation with about 115,000 students. Florida’s system is No. 2 with nearly 340,000 students.

The position is the highest-paid job in Pennsylvania’s state government, but Brogan’s $327,500 salary — same as the previous chancellor, John Cavanaugh, who stepped down in February — represents a pay cut from his $357,000 Florida salary.

Brogan said he was preparing to look for a new job as he entered the last year of his five-year contract as chancellor of the Florida system and faced an automatic cutoff from the Florida state retirement system when that contract ran out. He said he liked the idea of remaining a chancellor and moving his family to live in another part of the country.