By John Kennedy
The News Service of Florida
The Florida House Appropriations Council passed its budget bill on Tuesday readying it for the floor, while the Senate takes up its proposed budget in its final committee stop later this week, a prelude to what appears to be shaping up as a difficult reconciliation of the two.
With the Senate advancing a $68.6 billion budget proposal and the House working off a $67.2 billion plan, it’s no surprise that differences abound between the dueling sides.
But some of the big-ticket distinctions are likely to turn into battlegrounds – once the measures clear both chambers and negotiations fill the session’s final month. Among them:
- Gambling: The Senate sent a message to the House by muscling-up its school spending dollars with about $435 million in gaming revenue anticipated if a compact is reached with the Seminole Tribe, working for two years now to offer Las Vegas-style gambling at is Florida casinos. “It might make our side move some,” said Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, the lead negotiator on Indian gaming for the still-reluctant House;
- Trust Funds: The House pulls $716.8 million out of a dozen state agency accounts, while the Senate yanks a more modest $295.1 million. Among the agencies hit hard: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink’s financial services department, which loses as much as $39 million in the Senate budget. The House also would effectively convert the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund into an emergency reserve – allowing lawmakers to effectively empty the fund’s $600 million, if needed, to offset budget shortfalls in the coming year. The Senate doesn’t touch the Chiles cash, which is intended mostly to go toward children’s health programs;
- School money: The Senate boosts K-12 per-pupil spending by $15.41 while the House would slash such spending by $30. Cutting school dollars is never a good position in an election year and watch for the House to work in the coming month to boost those dollars. The House may be reluctant, however, to embrace the Senate’s tack – which fortifies those Indian gambling dollars with property taxes. The Senate assumes all 67 counties will enact a .25-mill property tax that last year was approved only by 42 Florida counties;
- State workers: Like any struggling enterprise, the House and Senate are looking at state employees as a cost control. The House budget would require state agencies to reduce salaries by 3 percent, although leaving it up to department heads to figure out how to derive the savings. The Senate eliminates the free health care coverage now received by 27,000 employees, including lawmakers, by requiring them to pay a modest 10 percent of the $180 a month family coverage now set for state workers – with new hires or those promoted into formerly free-coverage status forced to pay 50 percent of premium costs.
- Health and Human Services: Another costly, controversial difference between the sides, with the House touting having covered a full-year of Medically Needy and Medicaid Aged and Disabled services, maintaining services for 44,000 low-income, critically ill Floridians. The Senate, by contrast, keeps these programs going only until December – although both the House and Senate are awaiting $1 billion in enhanced federal Medicaid money to restore many program cuts. Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget director, Jerry McDaniel, has assured lawmakers that Congress is expected to approve the extra money by April 1.
