Accountability
When the University of West Florida Board of Trustees convenes at 9 a.m. tomorrow at the Museum of Commerce, it will vote on Item #BOT-5: whether to award President Manny Diaz Jr. a performance bonus of up to 16 percent of his base salary, which was set at $674,000 when his five-year contract began Feb. 1, 2026. Sixteen percent of that is $107,840.
- Before trustees sign off, they need to take an unbiased look at what Diaz’s report actually proves he did. See 2026.08.13-Diaz Eval.
Goals Not Approved Until April
The timeline problem:
- Diaz’s proposed goals and objectives for the year weren’t presented to the board until April 23, 2026.
- The evaluation instrument built around those goals wasn’t approved until July 21, 2026, and
- The instrument wasn’t circulated to the full board until July 27—barely two weeks before the vote on his bonus.
Bigger issue: Diaz has not served a full year as the official president. The UWF Board of Trustees confirmed Diaz as the seventh president of the University of West Florida on Jan. 8, 2026, and the Florida Board of Governors officially confirmed his appointment on Jan. 29, 2026. His job performance evaluation should be for his work from Feb. 1, 2026, through Jan. 31, 2027.
- In the private sector, Diaz would have to wait until February 2027 for any bonus.
Two Accomplishments Belong to Someone Else
Diaz became interim president on July 14, 2025. Two of the accomplishments cited in his report were the result of the efforts of his predecessor, Dr. Martha Saunders, and her administration.
- Enrollment (Goal 12): The report touts UWF surpassing 15,000 students for the first time—15,411 total—last fall, which is truly a historic milestone. But that outcome wasn’t due to Diaz ‘s four weeks as interim. We will get a truer measure of his recruitment efforts after the Aug. 13 board meeting, when we have the fall 2026 enrollment figures.
- Office of Military Services (Goal 9): Diaz takes credit for the August 2025 launch of this new office. The interim president was still learning how to pronounce “Bayor Texar” and multiple names for Bayou Boulevard. The merging ROTC programs and the Military and Veterans Resource Center took months of planning that predated his arrival. However, Diaz can fairly claim what came after the launch: the Warrior Scholar Living Learning Community, the Veterans Florida Entrepreneurship Program, and the first Spring Review.
Asked to Vote Without Specific Details
Two more goal “accomplishments” in the report don’t have final numbers.
- “Here for Good” capital campaign (Goal 1): The campaign officially closed June 30, 2026—six weeks before this board meeting. The report never states a final total raised. UWF recently issued a press release stating that it exceeded $100 million, but it did not give the total figure either. Also missing are the 2025-26 gifts that made it possible. The campaign had raised $90 million before Diaz became interim. If he expects to get a bonus, the board and the community deserve more specific details.
- Research expenditures (Goal 11): The FY2025 figure of $47.5 million is labeled a projection tied to a “recently submitted” federal survey—submitted, not finalized.
What’s left
Stripping away the puffery, there are some accomplishments that can be attributable to his own work this year:
- Talent Catalyst internship partners—doubled the stated target, from 7 to 21 signed partners.
- Stadium groundbreaking and early construction, but the actual product (a working stadium) is still more than a year away (which is the true accomplishment).
- Commons Patio and Cannon Green completed
- Civic literacy programming under the new Academy for American Civic Republicanism
That’s a solid year. It is not a 16-percent-across-the-board year.
- I still think the board should pass on the bonus this year and bring it up in January.
And What Will Zack Smith Do?
This past January, Trustee Zack Smith, who serves on the UWF board and Pensacola State College District Board of Trustees, blocked PSC President Ed Meadows from receiving his bonus.
PSC trustees deadlocked 4-4 on a proposed $25,000 raise and $50,000 bonus—despite an official evaluation that showed “unanimous positive confidence” in Meadows’ leadership.
- The three new DeSantis appointees—Richard Holzknecht, Todd Leonard, and Audrey McDonald—sided with trustee Zack Smith, claiming they didn’t have enough information to vote for the raise.
Smith’s stated grievance was that Meadows had given him “inaccurate information” before a board meeting. Will Smith be as aggressive in reviewing President Diaz’s evaluation?
Gizmo, my bookie and Pensacola’s oldest altar boy, says no and won’t take any bets.