House Democrats doing the math on the public school budget proposal unveiled Tuesday by ruling Republicans released a short list of  “lowlights.”

Per-pupil spending would decline $473 next fall — to $6,327; the lowest level since 2005-06, Democrats said. Overall spending on schools also would drop $1.1 billion, under the House plan, advanced by the PreK-12 budget subcommittee.

The House’s almost 7 percent per-student cut emerged  just a day after the Senate unveiled its own proposal which includes a 6.5 percent reduction. With Gov. Rick Scott having earlier recommended a 10 percent cut, the direction classroom spending is headed is becoming pretty clear even in this early stage of budget work.

Lawmakers managed to stave-off deeper school cuts the past three years, with the help of billions of dollars in stimulus cash from Washington. Last year, alone, $2.5 billion poured into the state treasury — money that has now dried up, leaving a gaping hole.

House Republicans countered, saying Pre-K spending still commands the most state cash in an otherwise lousy year.

““The depth of the budget shortfall is tremendous and every area is likely to see cuts,” said Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera,  R-Miami. “The House budget prioritizes education, with K-12 education receiving the greatest percentage of the general revenue allocation.”

From the ‘who knew?’ category.

Bike riders would be free to ride without their hands on the handlebars under legislation that sailed 6-0 through the Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

 Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican whose district includes a big chunk of Palm Beach County, is sponsoring the legislation (SB 1788)  which cleared its first of three Senate committee stops.

Bogdanoff didn’t attend Tuesday’s hearing. But through an aide, the lawmaker said the bill was designed to erase unnecessary state regulation.

Florida law currently includes at least 20 paragraphs and 1,405 words regulating bicycle-riding and safety. Among the provisions is chapter 316.2065 (7) which requires that, “any person operating a bicycle shall keep at least one hand upon the handlebars.”

Scofflaw riders now can face $15 fines, plus additional court costs that could run the price of the violation to as much as $82.50, Senate analysts said. Bogdanoff, though, left alone other standards covering helmets, rules of the road, and even one that requires bikes to have a seat.

“We never know what personal injury attorneys are going to do,” said Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico.

CORAL SPRINGS — Reminders of wars past and present highlighted a town hall meeting here with U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and about 100 constituents.

Deutch presented a Bronze Star and Purple Heart and six other medals and commendations to 82-year-old Korean War veteran John Siple, a Coral Springs resident who said a records mix-up prevented him from collecting them when he left the Army in 1953.

A few minutes later, when Deutch fielded questions about Social Security and the budget from the mostly senior crowd, Siple asked about the current U.S. involvement in Libya:

“Why do we have to be the policeman for the whole world?”

(more…)

Gov. Rick Scott approved an emergency $14 million to keep the state courts system afloat until April 30.

That’s just over one-quarter of the $50.2 million Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canady said he needs from the state to cover a projected $72 million deficit for the remaining three months of the fiscal year.

Scott’s budget chief Jerry McDaniel sent a letter to Canady today saying the governor had approved shifting $14 million from other trust funds into the State Courts Revenue Trust Fund, enough to cover the deficit through the end of April.

The deficit was caused, Canady wrote in a letter to Scott last week, by an unexpected drop in court fees – especially foreclosure filing fees – that generate the bulk of the revenue that pays to keep the courts running. Without the additional funds, Canady wrote, courts would have to furlough workers.

Sen. Don Gaetz went after Gary Farmer during the trial lawyer’s appearance before the budget committee taking testimony on an omnibus property insurance bill.

Farmer spoke in support of Sen. Mike Fasano’s amendment that would require insurers to pay for replacement cost no matter how the property owner spends the money. Sometimes banks hold on to the funds without releasing them within 90 days, Farmer argued, setting Gaetz off.

Gaetz demanded the names of the banks and how often it happens.

“A lot of us sit on bank boards and know better,” Gaetz, R-Niceville, said.

A flustered Farmer who could not immediately provide the information, but Fasano was prepared.

He read from a constituent’s letter who could not get her mortgage holder to release funds for repairs she had on her home despite numerous attempts.

The amendment passed.

Gov. Rick Scott, repeating his pledge to be the “jobs governor,” gave a pep talk Tuesday to tourism officials gathered in Tallahassee, offering some numbers behind the industry’s role in helping Florida’s economic recovery.

Scott said the state hosted 82 million visitors last year.  And he’d like to see that number climb to 90 million this year.

“I’m told that every 85 visitors brings another job to Florida,” Scott said.

But Scott apparently doesn’t believe everything he hears.

When Rick Gonzalez, president of West Palm Beach’s REG Architects, asked the Republican governor about his commitment to steering state cash toward supporting historic preservation as a jobs driver, Scott paused. Gonzalez said a University of Florida study showed historic preservation created 111,509 jobs in Florida during 2007-08, while also adding $3.8 billion in gross state product.

“I’ve never seen that study,” Scott said. “If there’s a return on historic preservation, I’ll look at it. But I’ve not seen that study.”

Scott said his approach to government pivots on supporting programs that will provide a financial return on the state’s investment. He didn’t draw distinctions between health and human services programs, which are generally money-losers.

But Scott said, “I want everything we spend money on to have a return. I’ve been in business all my life, and it’s easy to get capital if you can get a return.”

Gov. Rick Scott, a social media savant, is holding his second virtual town hall meeting this evening – this time on Facebook.

Scott held a similar forum on Twitter several weeks after he took office in January.

The Facebook event will take place from 7:15 to 7:45 p.m. tonight.

A Twitter prankster posting as Scott – @FLGovRickScott – is confusing some followers of the REAL governor – @FLGovScott. No word yet if there’s a fake Facebook member poking fun at Scott.

Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder, who hinted in January he might not seek reelection, has made it official with a statement announcing he won’t seek a sixth term in 2012.

Crowder says he’s announcing his plans now “to give ample time to others who may be interested in seeking election to this office.”

Click here for Crowder’s complete statement.

Back in January, Crowder raised the possibility he might run for a state legislative seat next year, depending on how lines emerge in redistricting.

A Senate committee this morning unanimously approved a measure strengthening the state’s yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database and creating harsher penalties for pill mills, one of Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s top priorities.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee also stripped out a measure that would have created made it easier for doctors to prescribe tamper-proof narcotics that prevent drug addicts from crushing the pills to snort or inject the pain meds. Most generic drug manufacturers wanted that out of the bill because no generic drugs yet come in tamper-proof form.

Bondi urged the committee to pass the bill (SB 818) to make it easier for her and other prosecutors to crack down on rogue pain management clinics and doctors.

Bondi said she’s “never seen anything like” the illicit pain medication epidemic in her 20 years as a prosecutor in Tampa and stressed the need for the prescription drug database opposed by Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon. A House committee recently approved a measure that would repeal the database created by lawmakers two years ago. Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is refusing to back down from his support for the database.

“It’s unreal. It’s everywhere you go,” she said. “We need a comprehensive plan. We need the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.”

Bondi said drug dealers thwarted by a prescription drug database in their state are flocking to the Sunshine State to purchase drugs and sell them in Appalachia.

Sen. Mike Fasano, the bill’s sponsor, also pushed the committee to sign off on his proposal.

“There’s not a person in this room today…that hasn’t been affected by this epidemic,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.

Lois Frankel was a liberal Democrat when she held a state House seat from 1986 to 1992 and from 1994 to 2002. But as her eight years as the nonpartisan mayor of West Palm Beach come to an end, Frankel says she has learned to be a problem-solver who rolls up her metaphorical sleeves to get things done.

In launching a Democratic campaign Monday for the seat of conservative U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, Frankel didn’t offer opinions on the stimulus bill, specific ways to address the national debt or what she thought about the situation in Libya.

But she worked seven sleeve-rolling references into a 10-minute interview.

(more…)

The House looks poised to take another swipe at former Gov. Charlie Crist, with Speaker Dean Cannon saying Monday that veto overrides could be coming this week on a couple of bills.

The House is looking to revive legislation killed by Crist that would give party leaders in both chambers enhanced authority over campaign cash they collect. The leadership funds legislation and another vetoed bill, shielding farm land from certain local fees, were both advanced Friday by the House State Affairs Committee.

The House has scheduled lengthy floor sessions Thursday and Friday. A two-thirds vote there would position the measures for similar Senate action.

A stark state spending plan, flush with red ink, began taking shape Monday in the state Senate, with school dollars sliced 6.5 percent and a health care proposal on track to save $1 billion in Medicaid spending, much of it from program cuts.

Health and Human Services budget chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, praised the Senate’s $28 billion for maintaining spending on some key program, including funding for homeless, AIDS drug assistance, and the state’s KidCare and Healthy Start insurance programs.

But he acknowledged the Senate — like the House — is ready to recast Medicaid, putting almost 3 million Floridians into managed care programs to trim costs, while also cutting services.

“We’ve heard that the current system is irretrievably broken, so we’re starting a new system,” Negron said. 

A Medicaid pilot program operating in five counties since 2006, including Broward, has been derided as a failure by many critics. But Negron said the new program will look nothing like the pilot program and will not drive frustrated patients to use hospital emergency rooms — one of the costliest venues for care.

But the Senate is banking heavily on its high-wire reform effort. In the budget unveiled Monday, hospitals would lose 10 percent of state funding for treating both in- and outpatient Medicaid recipients — cutting $450 million from the budget. 

 The Medically Needy program, an optional program long paid by the state and federal governments, would be sharply scaled back to save $230 million under the Senate budget — eliminating financial help given transplant patients and other hard-to-insure Floridians.

School funding, meanwhile, would drop 6.5 percent under the Senate plan. In the good-cop, bad-cop approach of budgeters, that’s still the mildest slice: The House has recommended a 7.7 percent per-pupil reduction, while Gov. Rick Scott called for a 10 percent drop.

From The Orlando Sentinel’s Aaron Deslatte:

TALLAHASSEE — Last week, Senate PreK-12 Education Budget Chairman David Simmons said the chamber’s classroom spending plan was essentially break-even for school districts.

That is, per-pupil student funding wouldn’t see much of a cut, at all.

But on Monday, Simmons reported back to his committee with fresh marching orders from Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander, and the new budget math adds up to a $6.5 percent cut for classrooms, equal to about $1 billion.

That’s much closer to the 10 percent cut recommended by Gov. Rick Scott last month.

Sort of. (more…)

Term-limited West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel announced today that she’s running for the congressional seat of freshman U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, setting up what could be yet another expensive, nationally watched race in Palm Beach-Broward District 22.

Democrat Frankel said she’ll focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but declined to outline specific policy stances in an interview today.

Frankel was a fiery liberal Democratic state House member before winning the first of two nonpartisan terms as West Palm Beach mayor in 2003. She lost a bitter 1992 Democratic primary runoff for Congress to eventual U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar.

District 22 includes much of coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties and is fairly evenly split between Republican and Democratic voters. But new boundaries will be drawn before the 2012 elections.

West is an outspoken conservative with a strong national following who won the district with 54.4 percent in November.

“Allen West’s record’s going to speak for itself,” Frankel said. “I believe the focus needs to be not on talk radio. The focus needs to be on working people — on people paying their mortgages, on people getting jobs and that should be the focus of Mr. West and the rest of Congress.”

(more…)

Just hours before Senate budget panels begin work Monday afternoon, House Speaker Dean Cannon did his own bit of budget calculus — unveiling the amount of taxpayer cash he’s allocated to each of the state’s big spending categories.

As usual, education is getting the biggest share of dollars, $8.2 billion for public schools, alone. Close behind is Heath and Human Services, drawing $7.1 billion in general revenue, even as both the House and Senate look to trim future costs with a sweeping overhaul of the Medicaid program.

In outlining the spending in a memo to fellow lawmakers, Cannon also made some commitments. (more…)

Candidates for governor could rake in up to $10,000 in individual contributions – currently capped at $500 – under campaign finance measure approved by the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee this morning by a 7-5 vote.

The bill (SB 1690), sponsored by freshman Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, would recreate the state’s pre-1991 tiered campaign contribution caps.
Under the proposal, individuals, political committees or CCEs could contribute a maximum of:
-$10,000 to a candidate for governor;
-$5,000 to other statewide candidates;
-$2,500 to state House or Senate candidates or other multi-county offices;
-$1,000 to candidates for county-wide offices or judges, including judges up for merit retention.

Lawmakers did away with the tiered system in 1991 after the state created public financing for candidates.

Diaz de la Portilla said the change is necessary because campaigns are so expensive.

“It’s a reality that you need to raise money in order to run for office,” he said. “By raising the limits back to a tiered system, I think those candidates for public office can spend a lot less time making phone calls for contributions, keeping track of contributions and more time talking to voters.”

A measure that would bar the Florida Supreme Court from stripping proposed constitutional amendments off the ballot because of deficiencies in the ballot title or summary narrowly made it through its first stop in the Senate this morning.

The proposal (SB 1504) also would impose more restrictions on petition gatherers.

House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos have gone after the court for tossing a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Florida to opt out of the federal health care law. The proposal would require the court to send an amendment back to the state department with instructions on how to fix it and allow the secretary of state to alter it and then place it directly on the ballot without further court review.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, would also:
-Require the paid signature gatherers to be eligible vote in Florida;
- Prohibit them from being paid by the petition;
- Require that their names be on all the petitions;
- Reduce from four years to 20 months the amount of time the petitions are valid.

The bill passed on a 7-5 vote, with Republican Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, joining Democrats in opposition.

Sally Bradshaw, a sought-after GOP Florida operative since her days as campaign manager and chief of staff for former Gov. Jeb Bush, has signed up to work for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s PAC as Barbour explores a 2012 presidential run.

Bradshaw advised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Florida campaign in 2008. Romney is arguably the best known potential 2012 GOP candidate in a wide-open field.

“I have a great deal of respect for Gov. and Mrs. Romney, but I think Haley is a better fit for me,” said Bradshaw, whose ties to Barbour go back to the 1980s, when she worked for him as a college intern when Barbour was political director in the Reagan White House.

“Haley is a straight shooter and he’s not afraid to be bold,” Bradshaw said.

Sure, Adam Hasner was a Tallahassee insider who rose to the rank of House Majority Leader and raised $1 million in his last reelection campaign.

But since being term-limited out of the House last year, the Boca Raton resident has been making Garmin-aided treks around the state to talk to tea party groups and other grassroots conservatives about a possible 2012 U.S. Senate bid.

Hasner says the tea party crowd remains unhappy with Washington and is poised to send another wave of conservative anti-establishmentarians to Capitol Hill in 2012.

It sounds a little like former House Speaker Marco Rubio’s early-2009 underdog Senate quest. Rubio was discovered by the national conservative movement before many establishment Florida Republicans took him seriously, getting a coveted National Review cover story in August 2009.

Hasner hasn’t landed on the conservative mag’s cover, but he did get favorable mention from the publication last week.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Former New York Mayor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is coming to the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach on Tuesday for a Palm Beach Republican Club “conversation and cocktails” event.

Giuliani was in New Hampshire on Friday night, giving what Politico.com described as a “showy speech” that was heavy on criticism of President Obama and praise for the tea party movement. Giuliani generally neglected New Hampshire in the 2008, focusing instead on Florida’s early delegate-rich presidential primary, in which he ended up finishing third.