St. Petersburg, Florida - What we've seen going on in Tallahassee is a huge disconnect between USF and the Senate, and it's because each is using different math to come up with how much state funding could be cut for the university.
We teamed up with PolitiFact Florida to help you understand the breakdown.
The first big difference is how the cuts would be spread among USF campuses. The university is focused on the Tampa campus.
"Which would be $79 million which would be huge for that specific campus it is the 58% or so number we're talking about," says Aaron Sharockman with PolitiFact Florida.
Sharockman says the Senate is looking at the entire university system which includes Sarasota, St. Pete and Lakeland.
"When you spread out the dollars figures across the campus, the cuts are much smaller in the range of 33, 34 percent."
What Sharockman says gets tricky is the Senate says it can spread across the campuses, but it's not saying it also wants to split off USF Poly in Lakeland to its own university.
"That's a little disingenuous on the Senate's part to say you could spread those cuts over Lakeland when in fact USF wouldn't have the Lakeland university to use."
Another discrepancy? USF says it can't spread cuts over campuses. The Senate says it can. PolitiFact Florida isn't sure who is right, but it makes a big difference.
"It will reduce some of the impact, and that's the Senate's right, but if USF can't, it makes the Tampa campus feel the brunt of this blow if the Senate budget passes later this Spring," says Sharockman.
Whether it passes depends on what it can work out with the house which is moving forward with a completely different plan. Some key leaders in the House have made it very clear that they don't like what the Senate has proposed for USF and they do want to see more fair across the board cuts.
The full Senate meets next week and could pass a budget by the end of that week. Then House and Senate leaders will begin hammering out a final budget agreement.
The deadline is end of session on March 9. Then the budget goes to the Governor. So there are still a few steps before any cuts are made.
Previous USF Coverage:
2/15/12 - Budget cuts live, but ''divorce settlement'' brokered
2/14/12 - USF Students depart overnight to protest budget cuts
2/14/12 - 10 News leading charge to #SaveUSF
2/14/12 - High school students impacted by USF attacks
2/14/12 - USF fears "devastating" 58% budget cuts
2/8/12 - JD Alexander pushes "backdoor" path for USF Poly independence
12/22/11 - Barbs traded over Genshaft's handling of USF Poly handling
12/20/11 - Genshaft dismisses USF Poly chancellor
11/10/11 - BOG grants USF Poly conditional independence
11/7/11 - USF Poly spends thousands on Star Wars statues
11/3/11 - JD Alexander's bully pulpit
10/31/11 - Polk leaders vote for USF Poly independence