By The News Service of Florida
As the House and Senate prepare to bring competing budgets to the floor beginning today, several controversial items are tucked into the budget and budget conforming bills that may be fodder for debate.
Among the issues that may come in for questioning this week as Republican leaders present the budget to the full chambers for votes:
HEALTH CARE
- Advocates for Medicaid patients are closely watching a Senate budget conforming bill on Medicaid, which would clear the way for an expansion of the state’s Medicaid reform pilot to 19 new counties, including a few big ones such as Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Orange, Oscela, Palm Beach and Pinellas, with mandatory enrollment in a managed care Medicaid plan beginning in September. Critics say the current five-county reform pilot hasn’t resulted in quality care for all Medicaid recipients. The reform expansion is in the Medicaid conforming legislation in the Senate (SB 1484).
- The House has considerably less for biomedical research programs than the Senate, making advocates for disease research nervous. While the Senate puts a little over $50 million into the King and Bankhead-Coley biomedical research programs funded by the state, the House would spend about $2 million for the King program and nothing for the Bankhead-Coley grants. The House also proposes to eliminate a direct earmark for cancer research that has been a given. Not on the table in either budget at the moment – although thought a possible wild card late in the session – is any money that might come from requiring cigarette makers that didn’t settle with the state in its lawsuit in the late 1990s to begin paying into the settlement fund.
- The Senate plan to send $10 million to launch a pharmacy degree program at the University of South Florida comes with a condition – the program will be housed at USF Polytechnic Institute in Polk County, home of Senate budget chairman JD Alexander. His Ways and Means Committee tucked an amendment onto the budget that authorized the program. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, told the St. Petersburg Times that it was “a good idea,” and said that while educators may be better suited to decide where such a school should be located, “they’d have to get it funded.” The pharmacy school bill was sponsored by Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who wanted it in Tampa. School officials say they initially wanted in Tampa but that USF Polytechnic has been successful in drawing money from lawmakers so Polk County is OK with them. Alexander also got money into the budget in 2009 for the Lakeland campus.
- The debate over embryonic cell research in Florida continues in the budget. House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands, D-Weston, who has championed the potential of embryonic stem cell research for several years and fought for state money for it in vain, has filed an amendment to delete from budget proviso a prohibition on the research at state universities. Another amendment filed for the floor by Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, would keep the ban on embryonic stem cell research in the law, but would provide that pluripotent stem cells that have been genetically reprogrammed “to an embryonic stem cell-like state” are permissible. The research on such cells is very new, but in 2007 scientists said they’d identified some conditions that could allow certain adult human cells to be reprogrammed genetically to assume a stem cell-like state, leading opponents of embryonic research to say there’s no longer a need for it.
- There may be further debate over the way both chambers are proposing to help nursing homes cope with the loss of state money. Lawmakers are considering tweaking the way hourly nursing care requirements are calculated to allow less care from certified nursing assistants and more from nurses, who are already on the payroll to help homes deal with a cut in reimbursement rates. The industry likes the proposal, the union that represents certified nursing assistants is fighting it.
PRISONS
- A late proposal in the Senate to shift prisoners from state facilities that would be closed to a built but not-yet open private prison has drawn some critics. The proposal, which emerged in the Ways and Means panel, may result in hundreds of Corrections Department layoffs, and has already resulted in intense lobbying by the agency and the correctional officers union to stop the move. The move is being pushed by Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, the Ways and Means chairman. A few other lawmakers have weighed in against it. “The proposal to close unnamed existing correctional facilities resulting in the layoffs of over 1,000 state corrections officers to move inmates to private facilities is a policy decision that deserves to be vetted through a completely transparent process,” said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. “As chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, I find it outrageous that a major change in how we run our state correctional facilities was not reviewed by committees that were created for this explicit purpose.” Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, and Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, have both filed floor amendments that would restore some jobs to the agency budget along with state money to partly reverse planned privatization. Expect further debate on the idea on the Senate floor.
TRANSPORTATION
- The House budget reinstitutes an 8 percent surcharge on the transportation trust fund that would add $150 million to general revenue, and sweeps another roughly $270 million out of the pot of money that is used to pay for road projects. The fee had been eliminated by former Gov. Jeb Bush to spur transportation investment in the state, but is back in the House budget with lawmakers facing another $3 billion budget shortfall. But neither the proposal nor bringing back the surcharge on the trust fund or the one-time sweep are included in the Senate’s transportation spending plans, and the Senate’s chief budget Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said he has “grave concerns” about the plan. In addition to holding the transportation trust fund harmless, the Senate is looking at rolling back a series of driver’s fee hikes that brought in about $1 billion to help lawmakers close last year’s deficit, but that plan has not gotten much traction in the House.
MISCELLANEOUS
- A floor amendment filed by Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, would insert a section into the general appropriations act that would require agencies to give preference to Florida-based businesses when contracting for goods and services. It wouldn’t be retroactive.
- A House proposal by Rep. David Rivera would require all agency heads to live within 50 miles of Tallahassee, though an amendment is filed seeking to eliminate the requirement.
- The House has proposed imposing 3 percent salary reductions on agencies, with department heads figuring out how they would be distributed. The Senate maintains state worker pay at current levels but would require some 27,000 currently exempt state employees, including lawmakers, to contribute toward their health coverage.
TRUST FUNDS
- The House pulls $716.8 million out of a dozen state agency trust funds, 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 basically 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 and health research.
REVENUE
- The Senate accounts for possibility of receiving an injection of Medicaid cash from the federal government to the tune of $880 million. Leadership expects Congress will extend a ramped up federal commitment to Medicaid and the Senate has put that money in the budget. The House remains hopeful, but has not put the money in its ledger.
- The Senate includes in its $69-plus billion budget about $435 million from a Seminole gambling compact that still has not won approval from the Legislature, the House does not.
