By James Call
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-952459.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Governor Rick Scott's first budget recommendation is meeting resistance in the Florida Legislature. James Call reports the spending plan has lawmakers trying to balance the needs of the state with the promises Scott made on the campaign trail.
Elected to his first public office in November, Governor Rick Scott rolled out a 65.9 billion dollar state budget for next year at a Tea Party rally in rural Lake County, almost 200 miles away from the state capitol.
"During the campaign I said I would present a balanced budget that reduces spending and taxes and I'm going to make good on that promise today. We are cutting state spending by five billion dollars and cutting your taxes by two billion dollars."
The spending plan is balanced by cutting per student spending in public schools by 10 percent, reducing medical care to the poor, diverting trust fund money to general revenue and eliminating 87 hundred state worker jobs. Scott predicted his proposal would be met with resistance.
"There will be a lot of special interests that complain about the cuts to their favorite program. But what we have to remember is that we're doing this for the sake of our children and our grandchildren."
In committee meetings, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers questioned the assumptions behind proposed policy changes and the math indicating savings. Here Miami Representative Jeanette Nunez questions Brett Raymond, a policy coordinator for the Governor, about reducing the state government workforce by about eight percent.
Nunez: "I have a question to the roughly 9-thousand positions across the policy areas that you are recommending to be eliminated are those, what percentage of those are vacancies I see that you eliminated all vacant positions over a hundred days."
Raymon: "I was asked this question the other day and we went back and tried to make a determination in a lot of cases, I can't answer that specifically. I can tell you that a good portion are vacant positions."
Senator Mike Fasano is taking issue with the governor wanting to cut 200 million dollars from the state transportation fund. He urged Scott's budget director Jerry McDaniel to reconsider.
Fasano: "I don't think you are taking into account the amount of jobs in the private sector that you will lose if you move 200 million dollars out of the transportation trust fund."
McDaniel: "Understand Senator we will take a look at the DOT thing very closely the last thing the Governor wants to do is create a scenario where there will be lost jobs in the private sector so we will take a hard look at that."
The state is facing a budget shortfall of at least 3.6 billion dollars and Republican leaders in the Legislature have pledged not to raise taxes. Scott proposes cutting spending by 4.6 billion dollars and lowering the corporate income tax by another billion, plus spend 800 million dollars to entice businesses to either expand or relocate to Florida. He campaigned on creating a better business climate by cutting government spending and lower taxes. Since taking office in January Scott has recruited two companies to move to the state.
However, the Legislature doesn't appear to have much appetite for Scott's recipe of spending and tax cuts. The resistance in committee was intense enough for Senator John Thrasher, a former House speaker, to stake out common ground for the governor and legislature.
Thrasher: "If in fact the Legislature comes up with a budget that has less spending, that reduces taxes, that goes towards some of the core principles that the governor has outlined is there some flexibility in what you are proposing.
Mcdaniel: "Absolutely, senator, the governor and I we spoke about this this morning, he is not suffering under the idea that everything we have proposed here will pass."
Senate leaders downplay the hammering the governor's budget team received during three days of committee meetings. Senate President Mike Haridopolos said it was to be expected with a change in state policy and echoed the governor's comment about special interests.
"What Madison talked about when he helped write the constitution, it was the idea of competing interest groups. historically in Tallahassee you had the public sector groups dominate now you are seeing a large advocate for tax payers. And that is what Madison talked about in the Constitution and that's one of our founding principles and you are going to see it played out."
Much of that action will take place under the direction of Senate Budget Chair J.D. Alexander. First elected to the Legislature in 1998 he has studied the process and participated in creating 13 state budgets.
"I think the governor has made a good start today in that discussion, we appreciate forthrightly bringing ideas to the public discussion ya know, I'm sure at the end of the day just as my wife and I don't always agree uh we still love each other we still get along and we still make it work. And we're going to make this work and we're going to help our governor lead our state to a better day."
Senator Mike Fasano was more blunt.
"In my opinion, it's a budget that mos of the budget that the legislature will probably move to the side and create their own budget as we have done in the past."
Lawmakers are doing preliminary work on the state budget for the year beginning July one. In March they will receive a revenue estimate, telling them how much money they will have to spend. The current state budget is 70.5 billion dollars.