By MICHAEL C. BENDER and DARA KAM

Here are some notes from an interview today with Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach:

FIRST DAY OF SESSION: With bipartisan support to delay unemployment tax payments, the plan is waive the rules and pass it to Gov. Charlie Crist before the end of the first day. The Senate will also name a Jacksonville roadway for the late Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville and debate reforms to the Public Service Commission.

Atwater choked up when speaking of the road designation for King, a former Senate President who passed away last summer.

“Though that may seem as ceremonial, for those of us who had the honor of serving with him, it’s far more than that. It’s really,” Atwater said haltingly, on the verge of tears. “It’s important.”

Also on the first day, the Senate will take up changes to the Public Service Commission that will put into effect suggestions from a grand jury report left on the shelf since 1992 to improve the integrity of the maligned regulatory agency.

LAST DAY OF SESSION: What Atwater doesn’t want to happen is another breakdown in budget negotiations and be forced to extend session past April 30. With that in mind, Atwater is planning on planning to encourage more transparency, which would require more time for the budget process

“I’d like to test some things this session and recommend them to the next administration of the legislature,” Atwater said. “Last year we did our very best. So now, we’re going to try to see if we can lay that down in writing.”

Atwater didn’t say if he planned to specifically include the allocation process (when the two chambers decide how much money to spend on broad areas, like education, health care and transportation), but it sounded like he would:

“I would want every bit of the process to be discussed in public and the conversation completed in public.”

BUDGET PRIORITIES: There will be winners and losers. Atwater said he’s not interested in across-the-board cuts and anything that can be considered a job generator will be more likely to get money.

“We will have to go deeper in some places to create any initiative for job creation: incentives, venture capital funding, all of that,” Atwater said. “I don’t know where those places will be or the depth of those reductions.”

The economic incentives could include lowering the bar for some programs already in existence or loan programs for small businesses.

Atwater’s “seed” programs won’t include the $10 million economic gardening loan incentive hurriedly pushed through by Gov. Charlie Crist more than a year ago that still hasn’t gotten off the ground.

“I can’t tell you that we would measure any level of success there,” he admitted. “We may try again a loan program. We may try some more in the area of venture capital. But that’s fair criticism. We’ve got to get them out on the street and get them working.”

EDUCATION: Atwater cautioned against raising the property tax rate to pay for schools, but acknowledged that there could be a major hole in the schools budget when stimulus money runs out in 2011. His plan to make up that hole: Ask voters in November to rewrite the state’s strict limits on class sizes.

“My hope would be that on a going-forward basis, dollars that have been deployed in class size initiatives can be redeployed in actual professional talent in the classroom: wages, assistants, on the school grounds,” Atwater said.

“I suspect that everyone of our superintendents and school boards that is looking at this exercise right now the the reality of the economic situation that we’re in, I’m sure their first priority is where can they continue in the administrative world .. where can they find efficiencies there rather than going into the classrooms.”

REAPPORTIONMENT: Lawmakers are holding a joint meeting tomorrow on two constitutional amendments on the ballot in November that would revamp the way Congressional and legislative districts are drawn. Critics, including GOP leaders in the House and Senate, object that the amendments would have a negative impact on minority representation. Atwater suggested that lawmakers may ask the state Supreme Court to weigh in on the amendments, which require that districts be contiguous, compact and follow geographical, city and county boundaries.

“I don’t know how you draw any seat” under the proposed guidelines, Atwater said.

Tags: Charlie Crist, economic gardening, education, Jeff Atwater, jobs, PSC, Public Service Commission, state budget, state spending, unemployment, unemployment taxes

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