Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a record $615 million Thursday from the budget approved earlier this month by lawmakers — saying he was holding “special interests accountable.”

With Scott’s action, the budget shrinks to $69.1 billion, and reserves swell to about $2.8 billion.

“I campaigned on making the tough choices to turn our economy around,” Scott told a crowd at The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community Thursday.

College and university construction projects took a big hit in Scott’s veto list, with most of a more than $220 million approved list eliminated. Among those vetoed was $7.3 million for a Wellington campus classroom building at Palm Beach State College and $3.2 million for roofs and other work at Florida Atlantic University. 

Scott, who earlier called for even deeper cuts for education, urged lawmakers to redirect some of the vetoed dollars back into public schools — which face a $1.3 billion cut.

Representatives of business groups, lawmakers and Florida Republican Party Chairman Dave Bitner were the warmup act for Scott’s budget signing and vetoes under a sweltering midday sun. 

Speakers praised Scott and ridiculed Washington for overspending.

“The people in Washington, D.C., need to use Florida as an example of fiscal responsibility,” said Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla.

The budget approved by lawmakers cuts $2.6 billion from schools, health and social service programs, bringing per-pupil funding to its lowest level in six years, while imposing deep cuts to hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs. Some economists warn the spending plan, which takes effect July 1, could slow the state’s recovery by adding more Floridians to the jobless ranks.

But among conservative tea party voters, who helped vault Scott to a narrow victory over Democratic opponent Alex Sink last fall, the Legislature’s spending plan was a failure.

The budget reduces the state’s workforce by 4,500 positions, to 122,236 employees. It also privatizes prisons in the state’s 18 southernmost counties, including Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast, clouding the future of about 3,000 corrections workers.

School districts also are looking to cut jobs in the face of a drop in state dollars. Palm Beach County is poised to close a $35.4 million budget hole by eliminating more than 700 positions, including custodians, classroom monitors and school police officers.

But in his budget proposal, released in February, Scott wanted more. He called for cutting 8,681 jobs across state agencies, while reducing $4.6 billion in spending.

Florida Democrats spent Wednesday firing off several thousand e-mails to the governor’s office, demanding that he veto the entire 406-page document.

“It is a budget that eliminates, and does not create, jobs for Floridians,” said Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach. “It is a sorely deficient budget that is inappropriately balanced on the backs of our middle class.”

With Rick Scott poised to sign into law a new state budget, the focus Thursday morning remains on whether the first-year governor might also be out to set a new state record.

Scott has said — without providing details — that he plans to veto portions of the $69.7 billion spending plan approved earlier this month by lawmakers.

Tea party activists are expected to form a large share of the audience at today’s signing ceremony. And leading lawmakers think Scott could make a political statement by axing hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed spending.

Could he top former Gov. Charlie Crist’s $459.2 million record for vetoes?

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” said Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the Senate’s Health and Human Services budget committee. “I think there’s a real possibility that the veto amount exceeds $459 million.”

The budget approved by lawmakers cuts $2.6 billion from schools, health and social service programs, bringing per-pupil funding to its lowest level in six years, while imposing deep cuts to hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs. Some economists warn the spending plan, which takes effect July 1, could slow the state’s recovery by adding more Floridians to the jobless ranks.

But among conservative tea party voters, who helped vault Scott to a narrow victory over Democratic opponent Alex Sink last fall, the Legislature’s spending plan is a failure.

“We were all disappointed that the House and Senate came out with a much higher budget than Gov. Scott proposed,” said Robin Stublen, a leader of the Charlotte County Tea Party, who helped draw supporters to Thursday’s signing event at The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community.

“But I think (Scott) will do what he thinks is right,” Stublen added. “He’s not concerned with his poll numbers or his next election.”

Florida TaxWatch, the business-backed government spending watchdog, spotted $203 million in “turkeys” in the $69.7 billion budget awaiting Gov. Rick Scott’s signature – and line-item vetoes.

That’s the most pork in the budget the group, which conducts the exercise annually, found since 2007, according to a press release.

Unfortunately for Palm Beach County, included in the pork projects is $7.3 million for a Wellington-area campus of Palm Beach State College. Gov. Charlie Crist last year vetoed $19 million – the total cost of the project – for the new campus.

Also on the list: $1.4 million for the Glades Senior Community Center. The county wants to convert the existing senior center to a homeless resource center.

Both projects are Palm Beach County priorities.

Here’s the full list.

Gov. Rick Scott unsuccessfully tried to privatize Florida’s three remaining state mental hospitals.

But Monday, those same facilities in Gainesville, Chattahoochee and Macclenny look like they’re going to absorb the brunt of some 500 layoffs planned by the Department of Children and Families to cover a $48 million agency reduction, included in the $69.7 billion budget now before Scott.

DCF Secretary David Wilkins sent a memo to the agency’s 13,000 employees Monday outlining the effort to spare “front-line” employees “who are acting as first responders for children, adults and families in need.”

“However, we have many opportunities to improve our administrative operations. By consolidating many back office services, improving automation and simplifying many of our processes,” he added.

The layoffs are expected to take place by June 30, Wilkins pointed out. That’s the end of the state budget year. (more…)

The $69.7 billion state budget now before Gov. Rick Scott will send tremors through Florida’s struggling economy, with school districts, hospitals and other big employers soon cutting jobs and programs because of a sharp drop in taxpayer dollars, economists say.

Scott has generally praised the spending plan for shrinking government, cutting regulations and reducing taxes. He says it will spur private business expansion and fulfill his campaign pledge to create 700,000 jobs over seven years.

Many analysts aren’t so sure.

More certain, they say, is that state government’s pullback will lead to at least a short-term reduction in dollars coursing through Florida. It could add to the state’s 10.8 percent unemployment rate, they warn.

“A reduction in state spending? Well, first, that’s just going to reduce jobs,” said David Denslow, head of the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research.

“It’s going to be another headwind in the economic recovery,” said Denslow, an occasional adviser to the Republican-led legislature. “You’re cutting employment, reducing infrastructure spending and lowering the amount of money going to communities. That’s going to have a negative effect.”

On the same day Gov. Rick Scott fretted about the state’s rising tide of red ink, Florida lawmakers Tuesday sent him the $69.7 billion budget they approved earlier this month.

Scott has until June 1 to sign it and issue his vetoes — which he hinted Tuesday he plans to do, maybe with some gusto.

“I can tell you, though, there will be additional savings,” Scott said – hinting at vetoes that pour more money into state reserves, already at the $2.2 billion level.

 “In these economic times, we must ensure that every hard-earned tax collar is used wisely in a way that we get Florida back to work.”

State government debt climbed to $28.2 billion last year – up almost $2 billion from a year earlier and double what it was in 2000, according to the state’s Division of Bond Finance.

While lawmakers struggled to close an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall – enacting deep cuts to schools and health and social services programs – almost $2.1 billion had to be taken from the budget just to finance the state’s debt.

 Since former Gov. Jeb Bush took office in 1999, ushering in a dozen years of Republican leadership, Florida’s borrowing has climbed by $12 billion. 

Those who helped write this year’s spending plan know the governor has the ball now.

“I suspect there will be some vetoes, but we have a responsible budget,” said House Appropriations Chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring.

 ”The governor will come in and look at different issues, different items. He’ll bring a fresh eye to it.

Working into the night on the legislative session’s 60th and final day,  the House and Senate debated the $69.7 billion budget — the lone bill by law the Legislature must pass each year.

The rhetoric flew in both chambers, with the partisan lines clearly marked. A final vote isn’t expected until after 10 p.m.

Ruling Republicans praised the spending plan for closing a $3.8 billion shortfall, including no-new-taxes, and managing to avoid deep cuts to programs serving critically ill, elderly and disabled Floridians.

“Contained within this budget is the seed for a money tree,” said Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, touting the blueprint’s economic development potential.

Democrats, though,  ridiculed the plan for cutting $1.3 billion from schools, reducing dollars for environmental programs, and imposing 3 percent pay cuts on 655,000 government employees who will have to contribute to the Florida Retirement System for the first time since 1974.

Rep.  Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, has stung House Republican leaders several times this session by accusing them of “sticking it” to various segments of Floridians.

He used the phrase to criticize Republicans for enacting new pay standards for teachers, and changes Clemens and other critics said were aimed at reducing womens’ access to abortion.

“It’s a great day in the state of Florida,” Clemens told the House on Friday afternoon, “because this is the last day I can ask ‘who are we sticking it to today?’ Unfortunately, the answer is Floridians.”

House and Senate budget negotiators reached a deal Tuesday morning on a state budget — after leaders broke an impasse over health and human services funding and also tucked millions of dollars in hometown projects into the spending plan to satisfy key lawmakers.

The deal keeps lawmakers on track for an on-time adjournment Friday, the final scheduled day of the session. It also may allow Gov. Rick Scott to claim a modest achievement — with $308 million in tax breaks tucked into the proposal.

That’s far from the $2 billion Scott demanded. But Senate budget-writer J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said the first-year governor should be satisfied.

“We all fight hard for the things we believe in,” Alexander said. “But at the end of the day, I think the governor has got a lot of the things he’s interested in, including some reduction in the corporate tax.”

Scott came into the session seeking a more than $450 million cut in the corporate income tax. Instead, lawmakers have advanced a $30 million reduction — a level close to what they’re also setting aside for a three-day back-to-school tax holiday in late summer.

In other issues, the Senate abandoned its push to slash spending on the state’s Medically Needy and Medicare Aged and Disabled programs, which serve 90,000 severely sick and elderly Floridians. Instead, the programs have maintained current-year funding.

But hospitals will absorb an even deeper reduction in Medicaid rate payments than earlier proposed by either the House or Senate. Hospitals will lose 12 percent of state reimbursement payments and nursing homes will absorb a 6.5 percent reduction.

The budget deal also was flavored with pork.

 The University of South Florida’s Polytechnic college in Lakeland, which has long been helped by Alexander, drew a stunning $46 million in state funding in the budget — about one-third of the state’s Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) total — far outstripping the University of Florida, Florida State University and other bigger schools.

House budget chief Denise Grimsley, R- Sebring, also represents a district that includes a large chunk of Polk County.

“There’s a lot of advocates for every part of the budget,” Alexander said.

House and Senate budget negotiators were near agreement late Wednesday on enacting a three-day, back-to-school sales tax holiday next summer.

The House agreed with the Senate’s proposed $25.6 million tax break, with further details still to be ironed out. But it looks like the second straight year of a consumer giveaway, brought back last August after a two-year absence is assured.

“We’re a great believer in a three-day sales tax holiday…and I think the House is, too. We’re probably in agreement on that,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who is leading Senate budget negotiations with the House over a wide range of tourism and economic development issues.

Still unsettled is Gov. Rick Scott’s push for organizing economic development agencies under a newly constituted Commerce Department. The House and Senate are at odds over how to structure the agency — headed by a secretary reporting to Scott.

The governor Wednesday also suggested he could scale-back his ambitions — perhaps leaving the state’s employment arm, the Agency for Workforce Innovation, out of the department, along with Visit Florida, the tourism organization.

Enterprise Florida, the Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, and most of the Department of Community Affairs may all roll into the new Commerce Department, under varying proposals.

But one proposal by the House — and promoted by Scott’s office — looks like it faces long odds in the Senate. Scott and the House want the new commerce secretary to be able to have a salary supplemented by private-sector industries once job-performance standards are met.

Democratic Sen. Eleanor Sobel of Hollywood likened the proposal when first floated earlier this year, to ‘payola,’ recalling the radio pay-for-play scandals of the 1950s.

“There was some real concern about allowing someone to in effect be a regulator and also determine where incentives and economic development dollars would go, and then be compensated by some of those same private sector folks,” Gaetz said. “We have some real concerns…It’s very different from the Senate’s view of the matter.”

Scott’s proposed corporate income tax cut — a $333 million first-year reduction — also remains troubled in the Legislature.

Senate President Mike Hardipolos, R-Merritt Island, said about tax breaks, “there are a multitude of things that are on the table.” But the corporate cut may not be among them, he said.

“I know it’s the governor’s priority and we’re trying to get there to help him,” Haridopolos said. “But I’m in my eleventh session now. I’ve had very few people in my career come to me and say the reason why we are not coming to the state of Florida is the corporate tax rate.”

House budget negotiators pushed back against the Senate Wednesday afternoon over health and human services spending — opposing pouring any money into programs that look designed to support the federal health care overhaul.

House lead negotiator Matt Hudson, R-Naples, rejected a series of Senate proposals, including one that would have increased Medicaid reimbursement rates for doctors.

The $338.3 million item was floated earlier Wednesday by Senate Health and Human Services budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, along with another $37.1 million offer to boost payments to dentists treating Medicaid patients.

Hudson said the House won’t accept anything that could be seen as preparing the state for implementing the federal health care rewrite approved by Congress and pushed by the Obama administration.

Talks will continue between the two sides later tonight.

But the House also shrugged at the Senate’s earlier pitch to revive about one-quarter of state spending for the Medically Needy and Medicaid Aged and Disabled programs — which provides costly prescription coverage to 90,000 Floridians, many in critical health.

The House is insisting these big-ticket programs draw full funding in the final state budget.

Hudson said he welcomed the Senate’s move away from its earlier plan to strip state dollars from the programs.

“But it certainly needs to be a bigger step, in my mind,” Hudson said.

In its offer, though, the House finds money for spending on these programs by reducing state payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for Medicaid patients. The Senate sought to shield nursing homes from the rate cuts — but the House is proposing 8.5 percent reductions in state support.

Meanwhile, community care providers in the deficit-plagued Agency for Persons with Disabilities would face 4.5 percent rate cuts, in the proposal from Hudson.

Negron and Hudson also tentatively agreed to work on setting stricter guidelines for spending by the agency, which Gov. Rick Scott sought to discipline earlier this spring with 15 percent rate hikes aimed at easing a $170 million deficit that had grown over several years.

Negron said lawmakers wanted to preserve services for the Floridians with Down Syndrome, autistic, spinal bifida and other disabilities served by APD. But he cautioned, “Even if you are doing the Lord’s work, you can’t bounce checks.”

House and Senate budget negotiators took early steps Wednesday toward resolving at least $3.3 billion in differences, with Senate Health and Human Services chief Joe Negron offering to boost spending for critically ill, aged and disabled Floridians, and eliminate a planned 5 percent cut to nursing homes.

“Everything in this offer reflects a priority,” said the Stuart Republican.

The Senate inched upward, offering to spend $38 million, including $13 million in state taxpayer money backed by federal dollars, on prescription drug coverage for some of the 46,000 adults in the Medically Needy program.

The Senate had earlier erased the program’s drug coverage, while maintaining physician services. But drug coverage is a vital and costly service for the transplant patients, critically ill Floridians and other hard-to-insure enrolled in the program.

 The offer, which is being reviewed by House negotiators, would bring back about one-quarter of the Medically Needy program.

Similarly, Negron said the Senate also was willing to spend $45 million on the Medicaid Aged and Disabled program (Meds A/D) which the chamber earlier proposed shutting down in April. The cut would have shut off prescription drug coverage for more than 42,000 low-income elderly and disabled Floridians.

 The Senate offer would cover less than one-quarter of those now served.

Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, the House lead budget negotiator, is running the Senate proposal up the political flagpole in that chamber — and is expected to report back at midday.

Negron said that under budget allocations decided by House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, the Senate can spend about $300 million more than it had earlier. The House must come down $100 million from its budget for health and human services.

With the extra cash, Negron also said the Senate was eliminating a 5 percent cut planned for nursing home payments, although hospitals and HMOs still face deeper reductions. Medicaid payments to doctors and dentists also would be increased under the Senate offer.

Budget talks between the House and Senate had been stalled for more than a week. But now they’re going to move swiftly.

Racing toward a scheduled May 6 adjournment, Cannon and Haridopolos have said any differences unsettled by Friday will be turned over to the budget conference chairmen to decide.

 Issues bigger than these leaders will go to Cannon and Haridopolos a day later for final deal-cutting.

After apparently mulling the decision for months, Gov. Rick Scott didn’t look far in naming a new chief of the state’s road-building agency, which lawmakers look to as a potential job creator in a punishing economy.

Ananth Prasad, an 18-year Florida Department of Transportation veteran, was named the agency’s new secretary Monday by Scott. Prasad rejoined FDOT last July after a two-year hiatus in which he was vice-president of a construction services firm.

The $7 billion agency oversees road-building,  land acquisition and highway maintenance, along with port dredging, an area close to Scott, who wants Florida ports better positioned to compete for trade. Prasad had been an assistant secretary for engineering and operations.

Prasad succeeds Stephanie Kopelousos, who left FDOT when former Gov. Charlie Crist’s term expired, and is now with the U.S. House Transportation Committee, under chairman Rep. John  Mica, R-Orlando.

 Prasad had been recommended to Scott by the Florida Transportation Commission, along with two other finalists, Thomas Conrecode, a vice president of Collier Enterprises; and former Santa Rosa County Commissioner Gordon Goodin.

“Florida is facing challenging times and FDOT plays a significant role in the kind of private-sector job creation that this state desperately needs,” said Bob Burleson, president of the Florida Transportation Builders Association.

Legislation that would have given Florida Power & Light and other investor-owned utilities authority to boost customer rates $377 million over the next five years looks troubled in the state Senate.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander said he spoke Friday with Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Wellington, chairman of the Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee that advanced the legislation (CS/SB 2078) earlier this month.

Alexander said that in their conversation, he discouraged Benacquisto from continuing with the legislation, as crafted, since it gave utilities authority to raise rates without prior approval by regulators.

Alexander, one of the Senate leaders, said Benacquisto, a first-year lawmaker, has agreed, and is reworking it. Benacquisto couldn’t be immediately reached Friday evening. 

“If it’s a…carve-out with no regulatory oversight, I think that’s not ideal,” Alexander said, adding that the legislation involved a “heckuva lot of money.”

The electric companies, heavy contributors to both political parties, would have been allowed to tack on an additional charge — without prior approval by state regulators — to cover their costs of building solar and biomass energy plants or buying renewable energy from producers.

For FPL’s 4 million customers, mostly in South Florida, the Jupiter-based utility’s $206.1 million share could mean an extra $2.40-a-month on average, or $28.80 annually, to encourage the use of alternate sources to oil-, gas-, coal-, or nuclear power.

Supporters said the move will create jobs in the burgeoning renewable industry. Critics said the extra charge is a giveaway, especially to FPL which last year was denied most of a $1.25 billion rate hike by the Florida Public Service Commission.

“I’m just concerned about that level of unregulated choice by IOUs. That doesn’t strike me as the way the Senate wants to be,” Alexander said.

After taking weeks of heat, Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday he’s withdrawing his order cutting payments to caregivers for Floridians with Down Syndrome, spinal bifida, autism and other developmental disabilities.

Scott confirmed what he hinted earlier this week — during a visit to the state’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The House and Senate have agreed to find dollars in their budget proposal to cover the $174 million deficit that prompted his 15 percent rate cut, which he said will be lifted by the beginning of next week.

“I became concerned that we would run out of money, and as you know, this is a group of people who are very dependent on what the state does….so we did an emergency order to deal with that,” Scott said Thursday.

Scott’s emergency order — issued with little warning — sent shockwaves through community agencies. Many said they would likely close some group homes, lay-off staff and curtail services because of how Scott chose to “deal with,” the deficit.

Dozens of developmentally disabled Floridians crowded Scott’s Capitol office last week ago protesting the cuts. The governor, though, was out of town that day.

“I’ll be pulling my emergency order, and making sure that our providers have the funds that they need to take care this group of individuals who really need this care,” Scott said Thursday.

After developmentally disabled Floridians crowded Rick Scott’s office last week, Scott on Tuesday said he’d be willing to let payments to caregivers return to levels existing before he slashed rates by 15 percent to close a $174 million budget deficit.

Scott disclosed his new position under questioning from reporters after the governor met with employees at the Agency for Persons with Disabilities headquarters in Tallahassee.

 In talking with APD workers, Scott didn’t mention it — instead sticking with what has become his standard, meet-the-staff stump speech, talking about the need for communication on the job, career advancement and his accomplishments as governor.

But speaking with reporters, Scott said he would rescind his executive order cutting rates if the Senate follows the House lead and restores fully

“We’ve got to make sure this doesn’t continue,” Scott said of APD’s steady string of budget deficits, which spans at least the past four years. “We’ve got to come up with a funding mechanism and management team that takes care of this very vulnerable group of people, and also make sure we live within our means.”

Asked if APD has been historically underfunded — given that the agency has a 19,000-person waiting list, Scott paused.

“We’ve got to make sure that we take care of this group as well as we can,” Scott said, but he added, “We have to make sure we don’t waste taxpayers money.”

With no debate or discussion, the Florida Senate overwhelmingly approved a legislative take-over of the state’s five water management districts.

The measure (2142) is the brain-child of Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales. Although lawmakers set the maximum amount of property taxes the districts are allowed to levy, the governor, who appoints the district members, has the ultimate say over how they spend it.

That’s not fair, Alexander said. He wants the legislature to have more financial oversight of the districts. The South Florida Water Management District got into hot water several years ago for lavish spending.

Only three Senators voted against the measure: Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston and GOP Sens. Thad Altman of Melbourne and Paula Dockery of Lakeland.

Dueling budget plans were poised for votes Thursday in the House and Senate – a milestone for lawmakers still far from consensus and struggling to close an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall.

But during almost daylong debate Wednesday, the Senate made the most striking move – breaking with the House on making 655,000 teachers, police, firefighters and other government workers contribute 3 percent of their pay to the state’s retirement plan.

Instead, senators rolled out an alternate approach, requiring 2 percent to 6 percent contributions. Supporters said the plan would be easier on lower-income employees – the bulk of those enrolled in the Florida Retirement System.

“Our intention is not to run (costs) up higher than it has to be,” said Senate Budget Chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, is expected Thursday to revive his call for making elected officials pay 7 percent into the retirement system.

 The move drew lengthy debate Wednesday – but a vote was postponed, when Sens. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, and Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, argued against the higher rate.

House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders came up with a way to add $105,000 to the Alzheimer’s Mobil Network: Do away with the Department of Elder Affairs deputy secretary/chief of staff position.

Saunders, D-Key West, said “no one can seem to tell me what the position does.” He offered an amendment doing away with the unnamed person’s post and shifting the money during debate on the state budget just before this evening’s floor session ended.

Who holds the job that isn’t listed on the position agency’s “Other Key Department Staff” page?

Ron Whitaker, former Republican Party of Florida executive director.

Saunders brought Whitaker’s resume with him onto the House floor, but said the Alzheimer’s advocacy folks asked him to withdraw the amendment for fear that it would get their funding cut in House-Senate conference.

“I think the point was made,” Saunders said, although he conceded “nobody was paying attention” as the budget debate dragged into the evening.

- The Orlando Sentinel’s Aaron Deslatte contributed to this blog.

The Senate health and human services budget committee Wednesday approved a massive rewrite of Florida’s Medicaid program, aimed at steering 2.9 million low-income Floridians into health coverage provided by managed care companies.

But the legislation (CS/SB 1972)  is now missing one of its more controversial provisions: liability limits for foster care providers. The sponsor of the Medicaid bill, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, quietly stripped the legal caps — leaving the fate of the move to separate legislation still advancing in the House and Senate.

Trial lawyers and children’s advocates have been fighting the lawsuit limits, especially in the wake of the death of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona and near death of her twin brother, Victor, allegedly at the hands of their foster parents who are now facing murder charges. 

The Senate Medicaid bill would’ve capped financial awards for pain and suffering damages involving agencies providing foster care services at between $200,000 and $1 million, and limited economic damages at $2 million under the provision. 

The state’s Department of Children & Families acknowledges the Barahona case stemmed from systemic failures within the agency and a private organization, Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe Inc., which handled their adoption and could be shielded from more costly liability under the legislation.

Although no longer included in the Medicaid measure, similar legal shield legislation continues to advance, supported by agencies which say rising insurance costs are threatening their ability to continue operating.

Negron earlier defended the proposed limits saying, “There’s a delicate balance between the rights of individuals to seek redress for their injuries, while at the same time making sure that there are insurance policies for them to make claims against.”

Times are tough in state government — with an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall prompting wholesale spending reductions and job cuts.

But Gov. Rick Scott announced Monday that he’s added two new members to his staff, along with new duties for a couple more.

Lane Wright, formerly managing editor of the online Sunshine State News, has been named Scott’s press secretary. Current press secretary Amy Graham has been shifted to traveling press secretary.

Wright formerly was a TV reporter with West Palm Beach’s WTVX-TV, where he also was newsroom manager.

Also joining the Scott office is Karen Giorno, a former advance person for former First Lady Laura Bush. Giorno will be Scott’s director of external affairs.

A Scott deputy, Spencer Geissinger is checking out of Tallahassee — heading to Washington, D.C., as the governor’s director of federal affairs. Geissinger had been Scott’s campaign scheduling chief and directed his inauguration.

Geissinger is a former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush.