By James Call
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Tallahassee, FL – Leaders of the Republican-controlled state House and Senate cleared the way for formal budget negotiations after about two weeks of delay. James Call reports, the agreement came a day after the Senate chief budget writer had criticized House tactics.
What a difference a Tallahassee night can make. As dusk approached the state capitol Monday, Senate Budget chair J.D. Alexander expressed frustration with the inability of the Senate and House to set allocations and begin budget negotiations.
"I'm doing everything possible to try to collegially work with a speaker who has done everything but seek a win win for both chambers."
Then first thing Tuesday morning Speaker Dean Cannon gaveled the House to order.
"Members will..."
and called on House appropriations chair Denise Grimsley to provide a budget update.
"Members good morning. As you know the House and Senate has reached an agreement on budget allocations and we'll begin the budget conference Wednesday morning, tomorrow."
Overnight, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Cannon settled on allocations for specific spending areas. The agreement broke a deadlock that threatened to send the Spring Session into overtime. And in a joint statement they ignored the sharp exchange of words between Alexander and Cannon's spokesperson. At the beginning of the House's session Tuesday, Haridopolos walked across the Capitol's rotunda and spoke from the well of the House. Afterward he said he and the speaker negotiated by telephone.
"Again, I want to applaud the speaker. This is another time our friendship really paid off. And I really give him credit for being a good listener. When we spoke last night by telephone we listened a lot to each other. And that really made the difference in getting allocations set. Having a balanced budget not raising taxes and fees like we promised and we're going to do our best to get out of here next Friday."
The agreement was reached following a Senate committee's sudden approval of one of the Speaker's major projects a proposal to add three judges to the Florida Supreme Court. Alexander, as budget committee chair sponsored the measure.
"We hope it will help. We have been sending signals that we're ready to dance."
House Democrats, oppose the court plan and many of the policy changes that will occur because of proposed spending cuts in the House budget. They point to Monday as an example of the kind of hard ball politics Cannon and House republicans play. House Democratic Leader-Designate Perry Thurston opposed Cannon's court package and then accused him of retaliating by not placing Thurston on a redistricting committee. Now, Thurston said cannon co-mingled the power he has in one area to affect change in another.
"I think everything done this session has been hardball politics. It has been done this way because there is concern about what the makeup of the body will look like after redistricting and after our elections in 2012. And they certainly don't want to push them through in an election year."
Senator JD Alexander is a hardball fan. His listing in the Senate's member's guide has baseball as his sport, and after Tuesday's budget committee meeting, he said he would have preferred to play more ball on setting budget allocations.
"I would have clearly enjoyed the public discussion on these issues. I would have loved to have had whoever the House sent over to talk about it from the Speaker on down, on any day or any time but You know, we got to resolution and we're looking forward to getting the bill put together and move forward and get the budget out."
There appears to be a consensus among Senators, both Republican and Democrat, that with budget allocations set there is time enough to pass a budget and meet the May 6th scheduled end of session. A joint conference committee meeting will be scheduled for Wednesday and then the different appropriation subcommittees will begin negotiations. Despite a two-week stalemate over how to cut four- billion dollars from the state budget, Representative Will Weatherford said everything is on track for lawmakers to end the session on time.
"I think we are right where we want to be. We've got a week to conference and work out the differences between the House and Senate budgets, it's a very challenging budget, certainly we have a shortfall of revenue -- four billion dollars. Good budget on people's desk by next Tuesday."
That budget is expected to total at least 66.5 billion dollars, about four billion dollars less than the current one. The cuts are distributed in every sector and silo of state spending, education, public safety and health care. The state budget year begins July first.