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Article
Courtesy of The Miami Herald
By Steve
Bousquet
Published
June 24, 2015
After flirting with fiscal disaster, the Florida
Legislature finally passed a state budget Friday, two months late and
many millions of dollars short of what Gov. Rick Scott promised voters.
The $78.7 billion spending plan has less money for schools per student
and more modest tax cuts than Scott had sought in a year when the state
had a $1.4 billion surplus. But lawmakers steered $400 million to
hospitals to offset a loss of federal money for the cost of treating
poor and uninsured patients.
The Senate passed the budget 37-0 at 5:39 p.m., and the House followed
with a 96-17 vote at 6:24 p.m.
The three-week special session ended
in an unusually quiet Capitol, seven weeks after a regular
session collapsed in chaos in a Republican family feud over
health care. That prompted Scott to issue doomsday warnings
of a possible government shutdown, which lawmakers avoided
by passing a budget less than two weeks before the end of
the fiscal year.
The budget pays for a major new USF medical school campus in
downtown Tampa, continues a college and university tuition
freeze, and sets aside $3 billion in reserves to preserve
the state’s AAA bond rating. |
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State workers, some of whom qualify for food stamps,
once again won’t get a pay raise. Florida won’t expand health care to
the uninsured. About 1,000 more jobs will be eliminated, many of them
vacant.
Adults and children with disabilities are among the budget’s biggest
winners. Florida will spend $230 million more next year for housing,
scholarships, tuition and other services — a priority of Senate
President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.
But the budget is a bitter disappointment to supporters of Amendment 1,
the land and water conservation initiative that 75 percent of voters
supported last November.
Amendment 1 requires earmarking $743 million for the environment next
year, but lawmakers set aside $55 million to acquire land, $50 million
for springs restoration and $224 million for state agency salaries and
operations.
Environmentalists wanted the state to buy land owned by U.S. Sugar south
of Lake Okeechobee to store and refresh water that flows to the
Everglades, and they are likely to sue the Legislature as soon as next
week.
“They’ve turned their back on the public while they’ve had their hands
out to Big Sugar,” said Mary Barley, president of the Everglades Trust.
“We must hold our elected officials accountable.”
For now, it’s Scott’s turn to hold the Legislature accountable.
He must sign the budget by June 30 and decide whether to approve or veto
hundreds of millions of dollars in parochial spending approved by
Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island.
In a high-stakes game of horse-trading, the two leaders agreed on $300
million in projects at the last minute with virtually no public
discussion.
“Pork… under the cover of night,” said Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach.
“I have a problem seeing that as transparency.”
After the rush of late-night spending, even the lawmaker at the center
of it all, Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, called the
result “far from perfect.”
Tensions between the chambers flared anew Friday.
Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, criticized House leaders for a “double
standard” by opposing incentives for film productions and pro sports
stadiums while insisting on money for projects “owned by millionaires
that have a large entry fee, large tuitions or whatever. That’s just
plain wrong.”
The reference was to a Crisafulli priority: a last-minute $2 million for
IMG Academy, an elite for-profit private school in Bradenton that trains
aspiring pro athletes where the annual tuition can top $80,000.
Senators also vented their frustration with Scott’s Department of
Economic Opportunity, which has been slow to approve money for local
economic development projects the Legislature approved last year.
Scott didn’t hear the criticism. After keeping his distance from the
Capitol for most of both sessions, he was not around as the session was
drawing to a close.
Republicans congratulated themselves on a job well done.
“I’m voting for this budget because it puts our students first,” said
Rep. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah.
A total of 16 House Democrats and one Republican, Rep. John Tobia,
R-Melbourne Beach, voted against the budget. The Democrats cited House
Republicans’ refusal to support health care expansion, the lack of an
across-the-board pay raise for state workers, no new judges or misplaced
priorities.
Democrats said the Republicans’ much-touted tax cuts of $427 million are
outweighed by $494 million more that Floridians will pay in property
taxes to meet the Legislature’s school funding target.
“To claim that we’re cutting taxes is not accurate,” said Rep. Jose
Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami.
“Not extending access to health care to so many hundreds of thousands of
our fellow Floridians by itself is just about a fatal flaw,” said Rep.
Joe Geller, D-Aventura.
The special session has cost taxpayers an estimated $1.5 million. Not
since 1992 have lawmakers come so close to ending the fiscal year
without a new budget in place.
It’s believed to be the first legislative session in Florida’s 170-year
history in which one chamber’s actions were ruled unconstitutional by
the state Supreme Court.
To the surprise of many of its members, the House unexpectedly closed
its doors and adjourned on April 28, bringing the regular session to an
abrupt halt.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the House violated a provision that
prevents one chamber from adjourning for more than 72 hours.
Lawmakers will return to the Capitol for up to six weeks of committee
meetings in the fall in preparation for the next regular session that
begins on Jan. 5, 2016.
For now, legislators are eager head home and get away from Tallahassee,
notorious for its sweltering heat and oppressive humidity this time of
year and where the heat index Friday was 101 degrees.
“Not exactly a resort destination, is it?” Lee joked.
FLORIDA BUDGET: HIGHLIGHTS AND NUMBERS
Highlights of Florida’s proposed $78.7 billion state budget:
EDUCATION: School spending increases by $780
million, nearly $207 per pupil or 3 percent. More than half of the new
money for schools, or $494 million, comes from increased property taxes.
HEALTH: The budget has no expansion of health care coverage or
Medicaid eligibility, and $400 million in state tax money will offset
the expected loss of federal aid to hospitals that treat uninsured and
low-income patients.
WORKERS: No across-the-board pay raises for state employees;
state troopers in six counties including Pinellas and Hillsborough get
raises of $5,000.
ENVIRONMENT: Legislators set aside $55 million to acquire
conservation land; $17.4 million for the Florida Forever program; nearly
$50 million for springs restoration and nearly $82 million for
Everglades restoration; and $32 million for beach and dune restoration
projects.
TAXES: Tax cuts of more than $400 million include a slight drop
in cell phone and cable TV taxes that will save consumers about $20 a
year, a 10-day back-to-school sales tax holiday in August and a one-year
repeal of sales taxes on college textbooks.
TUITION: No increase in university or college tuition.
LEARNING: State spending on personal learning scholarship
accounts triples to $55 million to provide therapy, tutoring and other
services to children with disabilities.
PRISONS: The Department of Corrections gets $10 million for
maintenance and repairs and $15.8 million to erase its operating
deficit, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gets $2.3 million
to hire 17 investigators to focus on inmate deaths.
HEALTH INSURANCE: Low-cost health care for legislative employees,
Gov. Rick Scott and other top state officials will continue. Scott pays
less than $400 a year for family coverage and had recommended raising
the cost. Legislators pay a higher rate, the same as rank-and-file state
workers.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Enterprise Florida gets $43 million for
programs to attract businesses and $10 million to develop a Florida
marketing brand; Scott had sought $85 million.
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