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Thousands of state workers unemployed as of July 1

By James Call

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-976143.mp3

Tallahassee, FL – A shrunken state budget went into effect Friday. It eliminated more than 4,000 government jobs and spending cuts are expected to force the layoff of thousands of school teachers in the fall. However, James Call reports a Republican led Legislature and Governor Rick Scott say the new spending plan will grow Florida's economy and create private sector jobs.

David Henly is among the million Floridians without a job. Friday morning about a thousand of his Tallahassee neighbors joined him on the unemployment lines, their state jobs eliminated by spending cuts in Florida's new budget.

"Always thought that would be the place to go. Work for the people who has the most money. Usually the state did but now I guess they don't."

Henly's office job disappeared in the recession. He's also worked as a masseuse and has been scrambling to find part time work. He enrolled in a worker retraining programs offered by the state through Workforce Florida.

"I just wish things would turn around so that people could enjoy without it being so depressed economically, without jobs because it looks like its fixing to get a whole lot worse and I hear they are fixing to shut this program down too."

Florida lawmakers closed a nearly four-billion dollar budget shortfall by eliminating some programs, privatizing others, placing new regulations on Medicaid, health care for the poor and disabled and eliminating more than 4,000state jobs. The budget represents the conservative philosophy shared by Governor Rick Scott, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Speaker of the House Dean Cannon. A the start of the Legislative Session, Haridopolos indicated he thought it was a new day in Tallahassee.

"There is a new legislature in session, there's a new governor in session and we are changing the policies of the state."

The change says statehouse leaders is to a job creation policy. The Florida unemployment rate is 10.6 percent and there are nearly half a million homes in foreclosure. Scott, Cannon and Haridopolos say reducing the size of government by cutting spending, taxes and regulations will fix that. They say making the state more business friendly will stimulate economic growth and job creation.

"That's not just a philosophy that is a belief that we have. It is not just political it is what we ran on so I'm thinking we are keeping the promise that we ran on in 2010 and many for us prior to that."

So Florida is different place than it was six months ago. The budget that went into effect Friday provides fewer services. The public schools' budget was reduced by more than a billion dollars, College students tuition will increase by 15 percent, and police firefighters, teachers and state workers will see their pay cut by three percent. It's the fifth year in a row that Florida has reduced state spending by billions.

A couple of days before the budget went into effect 17 state economists met to add up the numbers. Amy Baker chaired the meeting and she said she was impressed with how lawmakers met the challenge to produce a balanced spending plan in the face of declining revenue and still sock money away for an emergency.

"Fiscally we are in very good shape. We got a very significant rainy day fund we are prepared in case there is a hurricane this summer. They met the constitutional requirement of putting money back into the rainy day budget stabilization fund so all things considered we are in really good shape as we head into the next fiscal year."

While cutting spending and eliminating jobs lawmakers were also able to place an additional $200 million dollars into reserves and cut taxes by about $300 million dollars. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 27 percent of voters approve of the job they did.