Bud Chiles is asking Gov. Charlie Crist to keep his promise.

The son of the late Gov. Lawton Chiles who secured an historic $11.3 billion settlement with tobacco companies, wants Crist to appoint the panel established in Florida law to oversee the endowment named after his father.

Chiles first asked Crist in December to appoint the panel after lawmakers and Crist diverted more than $350 million from the fund, then worth about $2 billion, which pays for health programs for children and the elderly.

That never happened.

Instead, lawmakers took another $700 million from the endowment, raising the total trust fund raid to more than $1 billion, as they struggled to balance the budget with a two-year $6 billion spending gap.

Bud Chiles today sent Crist a letter asking him to appoint the 16-member panel, which has apparently not met in about five years. Under Florida law, the advisory group is supposed to give recommendations about the fund to the governor by Nov. 1 each year.

Chiles said he and his lawyers considered filing a complaint but decided to bank on Crist’s goodwill instead. He thinks the legislature and Crist might not be so keen on raiding the fund in the future with the oversight the panel should provide.

“If these people aren’t doing it then whose going to protect the rights of these children that are not getting the funds?” he said.

The committee established by law to make recommendations to the governor about how to spend the state’s historic tobacco settlement has not met in more than a decade.

his latest raid on the fund brings the total taken from the endowment to over $1 billion. In 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist convinced legislators and children’s advocates to allow a withdrawal of more than $350 million from the endowment to meet a budget shortfall, then surprised advocates with a second raid on the fund that led to today’s $700 million withdrawal.

Tags: Charlie Crist, cigarette taxes, state agencies, state budget, tobacco settlement

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 am and is filed under Charlie Crist, state budget. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.