15% budget hold back

Here it is, the latest budget issue - 15% hold back from current budget funds. What that means - 15% less than promised for current fiscal year - ICEBERGS AHEAD!!!!!!!!


Gov. Charlie Crist freezes 15% of state spending
Gov. Charlie Crist will hold back $800 million from state agencies until the new fiscal year kicks in.
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By STEVE BOUSQUET, MARC CAPUTO AND PATRICIA MAZZEI
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- As Florida's finances continue to unravel, Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday froze 15 percent of state spending for the rest of this budget year.
The effect is to hold back about $800 million that already cash-strapped agencies were expecting to pay their bills for the rest of the budget year ending June 30. State Education Commissioner Eric Smith told school districts that they will continue to get all of their money through early May.

Crist's budget office called the move ''precautionary'' and said the withheld money could still be released as federal economic stimulus checks arrive. But it was the latest instance of Crist's optimism-fueled approach running headlong into Florida's economic reality.

`TOTAL DYSFUNCTION'

Schools and state agencies have already had 4 percent of their money cut, and plans are being drawn up for much deeper cuts next year.

''This budget, we're just in total dysfunction,'' said Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach. ``We cannot do across-the-board cuts. It means we're not prioritizing education and healthcare over everything else.''

Republicans praised Crist for the move. Crist's holdback announcement came two hours after he suggested that no such move was coming. It capped a day in which state senators began drawing up a hypothetical doomsday budget for next year.

The Senate has begun what it calls an ''exercise'' in which all agencies are asked to plan for cuts of from 10 percent to 20 percent in next year's budget. What senators heard Thursday was a long list of horror stories: a 20,000 wait list for early childhood education, 70 state trooper layoffs, early-inmate releases and eliminating payments for eyeglasses, dentures and hearing aids for nearly 60,000 poor, elderly Floridians.

''These cuts are somewhere in-between malfeasance and malpractice,'' said Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, who oversees healthcare spending.

Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil said he would consider releasing inmates, closing prisons or taking other steps that could be challenged as unconstitutional.

`RIOTS'

Hearing that, Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, said: ``We're going to have serious safety consequences of safety, recidivism and riots.''

By next Friday, senators will roll out their first formal budget proposals that are expected to reflect cuts in all areas. The Senate might also propose new increases in fees and taxes, including tax hikes on cigarettes and alcohol and expanding gambling. Lawmakers are also considering pay cuts for more than 100,000 state workers.

Republican Sen. Thad Altman, of Melbourne, said the tough-cuts budget is partly being done to make the case for possible tax increases.

Ever since state economists and budget analysts forecast an estimated $3 billion budget hole next year, Crist has dodged the question of whether he would support higher taxes or fees.

''I would prefer that we not,'' Crist said Thursday.

''You might want to ask him where he's going to get the cuts from,'' said the Senate budget chief, Republican J.D. Alexander, of Winter Haven.

``There's no free ride.''

S. FLORIDA SCHOOLS

The 15 percent reduction in state payments would result in about a 2 percent cut for school districts' fourth-quarter budgets, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. That would result in a $25 million decrease for his district, the fourth largest in the nation.

''This is just more evidence of how fluid and deteriorating the state's economic condition is,'' said Carvalho, who called the cut ``an impossible-to-achieve reduction. It's a sad state of irony that the day after the largest rally of students and educators in Tallahassee, this announcement would be made.''

The growing problem facing Crist and legislators is that stimulus money will patch only about half of the state's current budget deficit of about $6 billion, and the money may not arrive as soon as hoped.

Crist's budget director, Jerry McDaniel, said it's taking longer than expected to get a federal waiver that will release education stimulus money to Florida because the state is spending less on education than it did three years ago. He said the holdback should not endanger the waiver request.

Thursday underscored how Crist hates to be the bearer of bad news. His budget director issued the holdback news as an e-mail after the governor held two public events, including one hailing the state's stimulus website, http://www.flarecovery.com.

Crist was asked if he was planning ''additional holdbacks, maybe of as much as 15 percent.'' His answer: ``Not that I've been briefed on.''

Herald/Times staff writers Shannon Colavecchio, David DeCamp, John Frank, Breanne Gilpatrick, Amy Hollyfield, Alex Leary and Donna Winchester contributed to this report. Steve Bousquet can be reached at

bousquet@sptimes.com

15% of abt budget? how about raising a FEW****INGTAXES you pile of lawmaking turds in Tallahassee? charlie crist's plan to collect a florida pension won't be so good when they let inmates out, close the schools, and close down the government.