In tough economic times, the latest casualty has become six-figure salaries. Florida lawmakers are taking aim at the salaries of university and college administrators, with a provision in a proposed higher education budget that caps their state-funded salaries at $200,000.

In preliminary negotiations on the higher education budget, the House and Senate agreed Friday to prohibit universities and colleges from using state funds to pay administrative salaries higher than $200,000.

The budget plan also caps at the same amount -- $200,000 -- how much universities can use on presidents’ salaries from public funds, including revenue sources such as tuition and fees.

The move to restrict salaries in higher education comes at a time when tuition has been hiked 15 percent the last two years and popular financial aid programs, such as Bright Futures, are being cut.

“It does play well with voters,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “They feel money is being wasted on administrative stuff and not spent on the classroom.

Lawmakers also briefly tinkered with school district lobbyist salaries on Friday, attempting to prohibit school districts from paying lobbyists more than $100,000 a year. But lawmakers backed down on that idea hours later, instead sticking with reporting requirements that are already in place.

The college and university salary cap cut is a big expansion of an already existing cap on higher education salaries, which targets the presidents of colleges and universities and caps their salaries at $225,000.

This proposal would lower that cap to $200,000 and expand it so that it applies to all “administrative” employees, which college and university officials say is a murky definition.

The requirement may be more difficult for colleges than universities to meet because they typically don’t have the sizeable foundations that universities have to support them. The average salary of a college president in Florida was $241,497 this year, with the highest salary going to Miami Dade College President Eduardo Padron at $353,485.

John Holdnak, the vice chancellor for financial policy at the Division of Florida Colleges said in an e-mail that “few of our colleges have sufficient resources in their foundations that could be used for employee salaries.” The colleges are able to use certain trust funds and tuition and fees for salaries.

“Most of (foundation) resources are dedicated for student scholarships and instructional program support activities,” Holdnak wrote.

Lawmakers said more state dollars spent on colleges and universities should be spent on students.

“We want to make sure that people are paying salaries with state dollars within something that is realistic,” said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach. “We are trying to protect state dollars for student programs and students.”

If the proposal stands, the State University System of Florida could lose about $1.5 million in state funds toward salaries, according to a preliminary analysis.

Colleges would be prevented from using more than $580,000 in state funds on salaries.

State universities Chancellor Frank Brogan said the move would put pressure on universities to rely more heavily on foundations to pay for salaries. Brogan said the move would require a cap for one year.

“The idea was because of the difficult fiscal circumstances to try to see if we bring a small amount of relief during this tough period,” Brogan said. He said it isn’t easy to distinguish who is “administrative.”

“It is tricky because you almost literally have to go into the personnel folder of every person and determine how that person is catalogued and categorize it to see where they fall against the legislation,” Brogan said. “The universities are prepared to deal with it. This is not a surprise.”

But university lobbyists say relying on foundations or grants for salaries can be difficult.

“It did concern us, for the main reason that foundation donors don’t give you unrestricted money,” said Daniel Holsenbeck, a lobbyist for the University of Central Florida. “They give you monies for specific things.”

He said universities cannot take a scholarship gift and put it toward a president’s salary, for instance.