04-27-2008, 03:30 PM
TALLAHASSEE — Two of the state's most powerful Republicans will hone the state's budget ax behind closed doors this weekend as the House and Senate give final shape to an approximately $65 billion budget.
The universe of Floridians who depend on state spending, from nursing home residents to teachers, can do little more than listen nervously to the grinding. This year, the final round of deal-making has been pushed even deeper into the shadows.
"You should always be concerned whenever things are done behind closed doors," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teacher union. "It causes us to have real concern about just what is going on."
House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami and Senate President Ken Pruitt of Port St. Lucie make the final call and they face the most painful decisions in decades.
As they hunt for a final agreement on more than $4 billion in recession-caused cuts in an election year, both have vowed not to raise taxes. That has made the process all the more frantic and difficult to follow.
"We'll have a public meeting when we make the announcement," House budget chairman Ray Sansom said last week.
Sansom's Senate counterpart, Lisa Carlton of Osprey, insisted that the process is as open as it has ever been. Late Friday, she agreed to release a list of unresolved issues.
"Some of these are issues that just the staff can work out," Carlton said. "The numbers are generated largely by revenue estimating conferences."
Bills await passage
One of the problems, Carlton said, is that many budget issues are hopelessly entwined with substantive bills that have not yet passed. For example, it's difficult to decide how much to budget for a sweeping energy package when the bill isn't done.
"We would like to see the same amount we saw last year, but this is a tough year," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole said Friday as he raced to the House floor to push for the legislation.
The department wants about $30 million to promote solar energy and other programs, but it's not clear where the money will come from.
To keep ahead of plunging state revenues, the House and Senate tentatively have agreed to cut per-student spending for K-12 students by about 1.8 percent, Carlton said.
But negotiators were hung up last week over a House proposal to pour $22.7 million into a district cost-differential formula that would give the lion's share of the money, about $17 million, to Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The Senate balked.
Planned cuts
Sansom and Carlton rode to the rescue last week as frustrated negotiators tried to break multiple deadlocks over how to cut more than $1 billion in public health and social-service programs.
The two announced that their bosses had agreed to preserve services for 40,000 sick and elderly Floridians who depend on Medicaid by diverting $300 million from the Lawton Chiles Endowment, a state reserve packed with money from a massive tobacco settlement.
But nursing home providers still were scrambling. The House and Senate were only a few hundred thousand dollars apart in a proposal to cut Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes by $164 million.
The Senate also was declining to go along with a House plan that would raise $17.6 million by increasing fines for delinquent motorists. The money would be used to help retain and recruit more highway patrol troopers, who are leaving in droves for higher paying jobs with local police departments.
"We're losing troopers not by ones and twos anymore but by the sixes and sevens," said William Smith, president of the Police Benevolent Association chapter that represents troopers. "We lost 15 troopers in Miami last month."
Another thorny public safety issue also was stalling negotiations. The House wants to eliminate 500 probation officers from the Department of Corrections for a savings of about $31 million. The Senate targets just 100 positions for a $4 million savings — a number the department says it can absorb by eliminating vacant slots.Newly installed department Secretary Walt McNeil warned Rubio and Pruitt in a recent letter that the loss of more probation officers will put the public at risk.
With the cuts, the state would lose "field contact," with some 70,000 probationers and caseloads would rise to 100 per officer, an increase of about 40, the department predicts.
"The bottom line is that comprehensive supervision will end for most probation cases," McNeil wrote.
At a public meeting late Friday to discuss the differences, Sansom hinted that the House might reconsider the probation officer issue.
"We will certainly be interested in working with the Senate to see what we can do about that," he said
The universe of Floridians who depend on state spending, from nursing home residents to teachers, can do little more than listen nervously to the grinding. This year, the final round of deal-making has been pushed even deeper into the shadows.
"You should always be concerned whenever things are done behind closed doors," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teacher union. "It causes us to have real concern about just what is going on."
House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami and Senate President Ken Pruitt of Port St. Lucie make the final call and they face the most painful decisions in decades.
As they hunt for a final agreement on more than $4 billion in recession-caused cuts in an election year, both have vowed not to raise taxes. That has made the process all the more frantic and difficult to follow.
"We'll have a public meeting when we make the announcement," House budget chairman Ray Sansom said last week.
Sansom's Senate counterpart, Lisa Carlton of Osprey, insisted that the process is as open as it has ever been. Late Friday, she agreed to release a list of unresolved issues.
"Some of these are issues that just the staff can work out," Carlton said. "The numbers are generated largely by revenue estimating conferences."
Bills await passage
One of the problems, Carlton said, is that many budget issues are hopelessly entwined with substantive bills that have not yet passed. For example, it's difficult to decide how much to budget for a sweeping energy package when the bill isn't done.
"We would like to see the same amount we saw last year, but this is a tough year," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole said Friday as he raced to the House floor to push for the legislation.
The department wants about $30 million to promote solar energy and other programs, but it's not clear where the money will come from.
To keep ahead of plunging state revenues, the House and Senate tentatively have agreed to cut per-student spending for K-12 students by about 1.8 percent, Carlton said.
But negotiators were hung up last week over a House proposal to pour $22.7 million into a district cost-differential formula that would give the lion's share of the money, about $17 million, to Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The Senate balked.
Planned cuts
Sansom and Carlton rode to the rescue last week as frustrated negotiators tried to break multiple deadlocks over how to cut more than $1 billion in public health and social-service programs.
The two announced that their bosses had agreed to preserve services for 40,000 sick and elderly Floridians who depend on Medicaid by diverting $300 million from the Lawton Chiles Endowment, a state reserve packed with money from a massive tobacco settlement.
But nursing home providers still were scrambling. The House and Senate were only a few hundred thousand dollars apart in a proposal to cut Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes by $164 million.
The Senate also was declining to go along with a House plan that would raise $17.6 million by increasing fines for delinquent motorists. The money would be used to help retain and recruit more highway patrol troopers, who are leaving in droves for higher paying jobs with local police departments.
"We're losing troopers not by ones and twos anymore but by the sixes and sevens," said William Smith, president of the Police Benevolent Association chapter that represents troopers. "We lost 15 troopers in Miami last month."
Another thorny public safety issue also was stalling negotiations. The House wants to eliminate 500 probation officers from the Department of Corrections for a savings of about $31 million. The Senate targets just 100 positions for a $4 million savings — a number the department says it can absorb by eliminating vacant slots.Newly installed department Secretary Walt McNeil warned Rubio and Pruitt in a recent letter that the loss of more probation officers will put the public at risk.
With the cuts, the state would lose "field contact," with some 70,000 probationers and caseloads would rise to 100 per officer, an increase of about 40, the department predicts.
"The bottom line is that comprehensive supervision will end for most probation cases," McNeil wrote.
At a public meeting late Friday to discuss the differences, Sansom hinted that the House might reconsider the probation officer issue.
"We will certainly be interested in working with the Senate to see what we can do about that," he said