Hours after the legislative session seemed dangerously close to running into overtime, House and Senate leaders announced an agreement on the broad framework of the budget that will allow negotiations to move forward.
Prospects had looked bleak early in the day, with House Appropriations Chairwoman Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, saying she was frustrated with the pace of the negotiations. The Senate had responded with a series of bipartisan speeches on the floor supporting Senate leadership in the showdown.
But by mid-afternoon, the two sides had reached an agreement; that was followed by early conference sessions late Tuesday evening. Early offers were expected to be exchanged Wednesday morning.
On what had been one of the most contentious issues of the negotiations, lawmakers leaned strongly toward the one-time cuts to higher education that the Senate had suggested.
In all, $285.4 million in one-time reductions to colleges and universities will happen.
Under the Senate budget, there would have been $400 million in such one-time cuts, with universities ordered to sweep their reserves to make up the difference. The House plan called for smaller cuts to higher education, but those cuts would have been recurring instead of raiding the university reserves.
“It just was not a place that the Senate could go,” said Senate Budget Chairman JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales.
The two chambers still haven’t reached an agreement on tuition increases. The Senate plan calls for a 3 percent increase at state colleges but would leave it to universities to raise tuition up to 15 percent under a state law allowing them to do so.
The House calls for an 8 percent hike, though universities could also take that to 15 percent under differential tuition.
House leaders also agreed to move $200 million in transportation fees to the state transportation trust fund. That’s about half of the Senate plan, which would have shifted all the fees into the fund. The Senate also agreed not to bond the fee revenues this year.
“We’re clearly moving them where they need to be, which is in the transportation trust fund,” Alexander said.
The Senate gave some on health and human services funding, with cuts in that area set to hit about $109 million, Alexander said. That would be substantially less than the Senate’s proposed cuts but slightly more than what the House approved.
Public education funding would increase by $1.1 billion, apparently clearing Gov. Rick Scott’s insistence that any budget he signs has a significant increase for elementary and secondary schools. Schools districts have argued that the increase is relatively modest when compared to years of reductions.
And perhaps as important, the breakthrough opens up the possibility that lawmakers could finish up their work by the scheduled March 9 finale of the session. That would require an agreement by late next Tuesday in order to meet a required 72-hour waiting period before lawmakers pass the spending measure.
“Now we’re on a path towards finishing on time, which is good,” said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park.
By Brandon Larrabee
