A proposed $69.2 billion state budget, which pulls millions of dollars from health care programs and pours them into public schools, cleared the House on Thursday over opposition from outnumbered Democrats.

 A year after slashing classroom spending by $1.3 billion, the House is making an election-year reversal — looking to replenish $1 billion. But where ruling Republicans find the money fractured the House along partisan lines.

The measure was approved 79-38. With the Senate expected to complete its budget next week, the two sides are poised to spend the session’s closing month hammering out differences.

The Senate follows a similar course as the House – proposing $1.3 billion more for public schools, while sharply scaling back health and human services spending. But the approach frustrated Democrats, who said cuts ran too deep, and the school money is not enough.

“Florida may be a great place to visit,” said Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach. “But if you’re in the middle class, it stinks to live here right now.”

Everglades lovers should probably chill out over the lack of funding for river of grass clean-up in the Senate budget.

Senate budget chief JD Alexander said this morning he’s “seriously considering” matching the House’s $35 million line-item for Everglades restoration. Gov. Rick Scott tucked away $40 million for the clean-up, and the money will almost certainly show up late in negotiations between the two chambers over their spending plans.

“We’re looking at it. We’re trying to figure out if we can afford it this year,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said, adding that he’s supported that and the Florida Forever land-buying program for his 14 years in the legislature soon coming to an end. “So it’s something I’d love to see us be able to do.
I would hope we’d be able to eventually get there…If we can do something it won’t be a lot, but we’d certainly like to provide some funding for preservation of Florida’s ecological needs.”

Alexander said he doesn’t foresee much trouble reconciling the two spending plans. The Senate’s proposal includes deeper health and human services, more spending on schools and road projects and dips into state universities’ reserves.

“There aren’t a lot of differences. It should be fairly easy to get to something we both can agree to,” Alexander said.

The Florida Senate hasn’t included any money for Everglades restoration in its spending plan, but the money may soon flow to the “River of Grass.”

Sen. Oscar Braynon, a Miami Democrat, questioned Senate General Government Appropriations Committee Chairman Alan Hays about the absence of the money during a meeting late Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s definitely in play,” Hays, R-Umatilla, assured him. “It’s an open issue.”

Gov. Rick Scott included $40 million for Everglades restoration in his budget proposal, and the House wants to spend $30 million on clean-up and another $5 million for northern Everglades projects.

The Senate’s plan prompted an outcry from Everglades Foundation CEO Kirk Fordham, who urged the Senate to go along with Scott’s $40 million allocation.

“We are disappointed that the Florida Senate has decided to risk the future of Florida’s water supply by refusing to provide any funding for Everglades restoration,” Fordham said in a press release. “This is not the time to delay the vital work that needs to be done. More than 7 million Floridians depend on the Everglades for fresh water. Any delay threatens the welfare of 1 in 3 Floridians and the economic well-being of our state.”

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, feeling a bit more upbeat about Florida’s economic outlook, said his chamber will likely pass its spending plan late next week, setting the stage for negotiations between the two chambers over the $69.2 billion spending plan.

“If we can find allocation agreements between the House and Senate, we’ll get done on time. If we don’t, we’ll be here for a while,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said. “We’re not too far apart. This is about putting egos aside and doing what’s right and not playing games.”

Because session started two months early this year due to redistricting, Haridopolos originally floated the idea of holding off on the budget until state economists had more certainty about the state’s financial health.

But Haridopolos said today he’s feeling a little more confident in part because the state’s unemployment rate has continued to drop and is now at its lowest in three years.

“I think we all have to feel a little bit better about it with the unemployment rate where it is,” Haridopolos said, adding that the Senate budget provides “flexibility” by setting aside $1 billion in reserves along with money from the tobacco settlement and state universities’ reserves.

But Haridopolos remained cautious.

“Anyone who says that they’re confident about the economy I think is living in a dream world. But we’re all encouraged that the stock market’s up. We’re all encouraged that the unemployment rate has dipped a bit. But we still have a heck of a long way to go,” he said.

Despite emotional testimony from county officials and prison employees, the House budget committee rejected a bid Wednesday to stop Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to close Jefferson Correctional Institution in rural North Florida.

The move was similar to the decision last December to close the state’s oldest lockup, Glades Correctional Institution, which similarly caused further economic upheaval in western Palm Beach County.

“This may be a 100-year event for this county,” said Rep. Leonard Bembry, D-Greenville, whose district includes the prison, told the House committee.

The Republican-led panel, however, sided with the decision by Scott and the state’s Department of Corrections, to close JCI, one of 11 lockups and work camps the administration plans to close because of a declining inmate population. Bembry sought to direct $10 million from the state’s prison privatization funding to avoid closing the facility, which is the county’s largest employer.

Close to 200 jobs will be lost — or about 6 percent of the county’s workforce. Jefferson County, which adjoins the state capital’s Leon County, has a population of 14,000. Dozens of residents packed the budget committee’s hearing room Wednesday.

“I’ve already cut the private prisons 9 percent in our budget,” said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, chairman of the criminal justice section of the House budget panel. “If I cut them again, it would throw my budget out of whack.”

Julie Conley, Jefferson County’s economic development chief, and a former mayor, pleaded with the committee to find other areas to cut — saying there are few job prospects in her community. Conley said she understood the need to save money.

“But we ask that you do it some place that can more easily absorb the impact,” she said.

Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he’s ready to put the brakes on tuition hikes for college and university students across Florida.

“I don’t believe in tuition hikes,” Scott said. 

He added, “We have to do what the private sector has done, what every family has done. We have to tighten our belts to see how we can save money. That’s the first thing I want to focus on: How do we reduce our costs, rather than how do we raise tuition.”

Last week, 300 Florida university students rallied at the Capitol to oppose what looks like another push by the Legislature to approve a tuition increase. Tuition at five Florida universities has climbed 60 percent over the past four years, while students at the other six public universities have weathered a 45 percent boost in that time.

The presidents of the University of Florida and Florida State University earlier this month urged a House committee to give schools authority to begin charging higher tuition for science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs — the STEM degrees that Scott says are the path to employment in the evolving economy.

The House budget committee Wednesday looks set to approve another potential 15 percent boost in university tuition as part of its $69 billion state spending plan. College tuition would climb 8 percent, under the plan.

Florida’s tuition has been climbing even as state support for universities has dropped 24 percent since 2008, shifting more school costs onto students and their families. The state’s tuition remains the 45th lowest rate in the country.

But while universities have been cutting programs to reduce costs, Scott thinks more reductions can be made at the administrative level.

Six-figure salaries paid to high-level administrators seem to have endured Florida’s prolonged economic slump. Over the past year, they’ve become a rallying point at campus protests.

“I want the cost of living in this state to be lower than other states, I don’t want it to be higher than other states,” Scott said. “Would you think that way in business? You’d wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gosh. The other business, it costs them more to do things, so let me raise my prices.’ You don’t do that. You figure out, how can we be efficient.” 

Florida university students could face another round of 15 percent tuition hikes next fall, under a spending plan unveiled Tuesday by the House Higher Education budget committee.

Gov. Rick Scott, who has been pushing schools to expand their science, technology, education and mathematics programs, saying STEM degrees are what employers are seeking. But Scott, who has questioned the spending practices at state universities, notably didn’t call for a tuition increase in his $66.4 billion state budget proposal, released last month.

Committee Chair Marlene O’Toole, R-Lady Lake,  acknowledged that the proposed tuition hike will prove controversial — and may face open opposition from Scott. But with state support for universities slashed by 6.2 percent — following a pattern that has seen public funding reduced 17 percent between 2007 and 2010 — tuition’s role has grown.

Since Florida universities were authorized to boost tuition by as much as 15 percent, beginning in 2007, the cost for students and their families has climbed 60 percent. O’Toole pointed out, however, that Florida’s average $5,626 annual tuition is still among the lowest in the nation.

Colleges could increase their tuition by 8 percent next year, under the House proposal.

The House’s push to meet Gov. Rick Scott’s demand for $1 billion more in school spending came into sharper focus Tuesday, as a budget panel unveiled about $300 million in health and humans services cuts aimed at freeing-up dollars for classrooms.

Emergency room visits would be limited to a dozen per-year for adults in the state’s Medicaid program, while chiropractic and podiatry services for some 34,000 mostly low-income and elderly Floridians would be eliminated under the House’s approach, which cleared the Health Care budget subcommittee on a 10-4 vote, with Democrats opposed.

Chairman Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, had hinted that cuts in many programs would be needed to meet a goal of pumping more money into public schools this election year — blunting a $1.3 billion cut schools weathered last year.

“He certainly is going to make sure we spend money on people over things,” Hudson said. “And students are certainly a priority for the speaker.

“ I would anticipate that when the other budgets roll out, you’ll see they’re a collective package in that we will be very aggressive in making sure that not only are we meeting the health care needs, but we are meeting the education needs.”

Democrats, however, urged that Republican leaders find more deft ways to make budget reductions. Eliminating some routine health coverage completely for some of the frailest Floridians can result in the state absorbing costs elsewhere.

Several college students who said they received $1,200-a-month from the state as part of the Department of Children & Families’ ‘road-to-independence’ program for youngsters who have been in foster care, argued against another House plan to cut the program’s maximum eligibility age to 21 — down from the current age 23.

The change would save about $10 million, but eliminate 657 people from the program.

Those who testified Tuesday before the committee recalled childhoods spent cycling through foster homes and schools before setting themselves on a path to college and a professional future only with the help of mentoring and the program’s cash.

“It’d be absolutely devastating to end these services at age 21, just when people are getting their feet under them,” said Andrea Cowart, 22, of Dunedin, who attends St. Petersburg College.

Cowart said she was in foster care for almost seven years and attended 10 to 15 schools. She had dropped out of high school her freshman year and had a child at age 17. Motherhood, she said, changed her course — but only with the financial help from the state program.

“It made what was impossible, possible to me,” she said.

House Speaker Dean Cannon and budget-writers revealed some broad brush strokes Thursday for how the House will craft next year’s state spending plan — embracing Gov. Rick Scott’s call for a $1 billion boost in public school funding, but rejecting his call for deep cuts in Medicaid payments to hospitals.

Cannon’s release of spending allocations for budget subcommittees also may heighten pressure on the state Senate, where Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, have talked about possibly delaying final action on a budget until later this spring.

Cannon, though, also seemed to try to find a middle ground — assuring lawmakers in his budget memo that “contingencies” could be included in a final spending plan that made changes if the economy brightens, or worsens.

 ”These contingencies will provide self-executing direction on how to enact reductions or provide additional spending authority, without accessing reserves, should circumstances change,” wrote Cannon, R-Winter Park, who is a lawyer, by profession.

Alexander, who declined to say much about the House approach, said the Senate did plan to move ahead with its budget work. But he said leaders there were still concerned about economic shifts that might effect the spending plan, which takes effect July 1.

Still, Alexander said the House’s idea about building in proposed cuts as contingencies, “is another option to deal with this concern.”

While Scott built his $1 billion public school increase by cutting almost $2 billion in Medicaid spending, the biggest share coming in cuts to hospitals, Cannon outlines a different course.

He said the House wouldn’t go along with Scott’s plan to overhaul immediately the way hospitals get reimbursed for treating poor, elderly and disabled Floridians. But Cannon hinted that deep reductions in general government, transportation and environmental programs would be deployed, instead, by the House to find school dollars.

The House also pulls close to $300 million from state trust funds for use elsewhere in the budget – double what Scott proposed diverting from these accounts. But the House has to set aside as much as $100 million for tax breaks in the coming year, topping the roughly $35 million the governor has proposed. 

The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union and a powerful ally of the Legislature’s outnumbered Democrats, were cool to the House’s proposal. Andy Ford, the FEA president, said the proposed school increase doesn’t come close to offsetting the $1.3 billion in cuts imposed by Scott and lawmakers last year.

Scott’s proposal would boost average per-pupil spending by $142, to $6,372, which is still well below the record $7,126 reached in 2008, before the recession forced deep cutbacks. Classroom spending currently is at its lowest level in six year.

“Every child in Florida deserves a high-quality neighborhood school – and it’s within our means to provide one,” Ford said. “But we must understand that investing in our children pays the highest dividends…This proposal puts a small bandage on the gashes inflicted with last year’s budget. We need to do better.”

State economists found a few more dollars for lawmakers looking to close a $2 billion budget gap.

But not enough.

Revising their forecast from last October, the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference agreed that tax collections have climbed $48 million more than anticipated this year — but are expected to be $25.7 billion below forecast for 2012-13. The difference means legislators will have about $23 million in extra cash to spread around in the $66-billion budget they are just beginning to cobble together for the year beginning July 1.

“Nothing dramatic happened since the fall,” said Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, who is among those making Thursday’s forecast.

Rising costs and the state’s still-fragile economy have combined to leave lawmakers staring at a $2 billion shortfall next year. Still, that’s about half the hole they faced a year ago, a sign, analysts said, that Florida is slowly recovering from the recession.

Sales-tax receipts, the real driver of Florida’s budget, are up slightly. Corporate and real estate taxes also have picked up over the past year, analysts said. But signs of the troubled economy linger — with personal income down in Florida during the third quarter of 2011.

The state still has a two-year backlog of homes for sale, and the number of foreclosures in Florida continues to outstrip home sales, Baker said.

With the Legislature opening next week, Gov. Rick Scott used his weekly radio address Friday to set some mileposts for lawmakers.

While legislative leaders say they’ll be mostly focused on patching up the state budget and once-a-decade redistricting, Scott has his own trio of priorities.

The second-year governor wants lawmakers to approve a jobs creation package — presumably his mix of economic incentive spending and tax breaks; a reduction in auto insurance rates — likely some form of personal injury protection changes;  and a $1 billion increase in public school spending.

“2011 was a great year,” Scott said. “According to the latest figures, Florida added more than 130,000 jobs.  I will work every day to make sure that we continue to add jobs. I look forward on working with the Legislature in the upcoming session.”

Here’s Scott’s address: Podcast_2012-01-06

Gov. Rick Scott ripped the Obama administration Friday for rejecting Florida’s application for Race to the Top education dollars, deriding the decision as stemming from the state’s refusal to accept the money “with strings attached.”

Nine states were authorized by federal officials to share $500 million in grant money aimed at accelerating  improvements in early childhood programs. California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington state will get the dollars to make strides in pre-kindergarten education.

Scott said he suspected Florida was turned down because the state did not commit to continuing programs after federal dollars expired — a move he said was aimed at avoiding making state taxpayers pick up the tab for new government services.

 ”When Florida’s application was submitted for the grant in October, we made it clear that we would not accept grant money with strings attached, additional state spending obligations, or requirements that created new burdensome regulations on private providers,” Scott said.

 ” We stuck to our principles, and unfortunately our insistence against irresponsibly using one-time dollars for recurring government programs did not win the favor of the administration in Washington,” he added.

Race to the Top, the centerpiece of Obama’s education policies, has proved a thorny issue for Republicans. In the GOP presidential field, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a staunch opponent, while Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is a fan.

The funding approach also supports many of the early-learning measures promoted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and state legislative leaders.

Still, Scott defied tea party activists in October when he submitted the state’s application.  But he was lured by the prospect of winning as much as $100 million in federal cash for the state — in a year when he wants to pump-up Florida K-12 spending by $1 billion.

Scott insisted, though, that he wouldn’t go along with federal officials dictating terms for how the state spent the money.

Florida won a $700 million federal grant under the program last year, in its second attempt at landing the cash. But Scott has pushed back millions of dollars in aid tied to Obama’s health care overhaul. The state’s Tea Party Network, also openly demanded in the fall that he steer clear of the Race to the Top effort.

But for all the line-in-the-sand drawing, Scott in September agreed to some conditions in advance of the application.

At Scott’s urging, the Legislative Budget Commission accepted a $3.4 million federal grant under the Affordable Care Act to provide home visiting services to at-risk families. Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, was among those urging against the move, saying the program’s mission was murky, and he feared it could result in the state facing additional costs.

Gov. Rick Scott today will call for a $1 billion increase in dollars for public schools – blunted by deep reductions in health and social service programs — in his 2012-13 budget proposal to the Legislature.

Scott touted the increase in a conference call Tuesday with school superintendents, saying he sees education as key to his goal of creating 700,000 jobs in Florida over the next seven years.

The fragile economy, though, has left Scott and lawmakers facing a $2 billion budget shortfall. And boosting money for classrooms will erode the amount of cash available for such big-ticket programs as Medicaid, which already absorbs close to one-third of the this years’s $69.1 billion budget.

“That’ll help schools,” Vern Pickup-Crawford, lobbyist for the Palm Beach County School Board, said of the proposed increase. “But we’ll have to see how he makes it work.”

Florida schools struggled this year after lawmakers cut funding by $1.3 billion, bringing poor-pupil spending to its lowest mark in six years. Scott’s proposal would help bring school districts out of that hole, but even the governor’s staff acknowledges the $1 billion boost would hike the average $6,267 per-student spending by no more than about $100.

Florida schools face a 30,000 student increase in the coming year, forcing whatever dollars are approved to be stretched further.

Educators, though, say they are buoyed by Scott’s focus on schools. In presenting his first budget proposal as governor in February, Scott recommended that lawmakers slash $3.3 billion from education — a dramatic reduction that lawmakers eventually softened when completing the budget in May.

Florida’s debt level dropped this year for the first time in at least 20 years — helped along by Gov. Rick Scott’s veto of some $135 million in university construction borrowing and a two-year halt on environmental land buys, the governor and Cabinet were told Tuesday.

Florida’s debt level slid to $27.7 billion this year — down $500 million from last year’s record high. That’s a sharp contrast from a year earlier, when $2 billion in additional borrowing pushed state debt to double what it was in 2000, according to the state’s Division of Bond Finance.

Ben Watkins, head of the division, said the state still will have to spend $2.2 billion in next year’s budget just to cover payments on the IOUs. That’s actually up $100 million from last year because of timing of the state’s bond issues. But refinancing of existing debt has saved the state millions this year, Watkins told Scott and the Cabinet.

Fifty-seven percent of what the state owes stems from school, college and university construction. Scott last year, took steps to rein-in that spending with his veto of university building projects, including $3.2 million for new roofing and other work at Florida Atlantic University.

 The only significant university construction work Scott allowed to become law was $35 million for work at the University of South Florida Polytechnic’s Lakeland campus, which was advanced by Senate budget chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Scott, who was elected with strong tea party support, has been outspoken in his push to stem Florida’s rising tide of red ink. 

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. Roughly $10 billion more debt is expected to be issued through 2019, to cover currently authorized programs, the bond finance division said.

Public school and university construction projects, roadwork and environmental land purchases have driven much of the borrowing, records show. Major tax cuts enacted during Bush’s two terms and recession-forced budget reductions also helped steer lawmakers away from a pay-as-you-go approach in many spending areas.

The economy, however, has helped change the state’s spending policies. The Florida Forever land-buying program, which formerly used to borrow $300 million annually to preserve environmentally sensitive lands, has been mostly on hold the past two years.

The state’s gross receipts tax, which supports school construction projects, also has been declining. The tax is built on levies imposed on utilities — but the economic downturn and societal shift away from land-line telephones has dramatically reduced the dollars available for campus construction.

Former Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham led a gathering of activists Wednesday calling for Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders to preserve the state’s water resources, while renewing its longstanding commitment to the environment.

“We need strong gubernatorial leadership to reverse the damage that’s been done,” Graham told a rally at the state Capitol.

Graham debuted Wednesday as leader of the Florida Conservation Coalition, which includes Audubon of Florida, 1000 Friends of Florida, the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land and League of Women Voters. The coalition plans to lobby Scott and the Republican-led Legislature to restore funding to water quality programs, the Florida Forever land-buying program, and Everglades restoration, which supporters say have been staggered by budget cuts since 2007.

Graham was joined by state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, Nathaniel Reed of 1000 Friends of Florida and representatives of environmental groups, which generally praised Scott’s environmental stance, but blasting legislative moves which reduced oversight and dollars for green programs.

Advocates derided the Legislature for approving a $210 million cut in water management district property taxes, which has led to wholescale staff layoffs and program reductions, the most profound occuring at the South Florida Water Management District. Graham said taxes were “reduced by the amount of two pizzas a year,” but that the cuts did wide-ranging harm to existing programs and services.

Environmentalists, though, withheld direct criticism of Scott, who campaigned for the reduction and embraced the  cuts. Instead, Graham, apparently buoyed by recent Scott comments which underscored the need for effective environmental policy and Everglades restoration, urged conservationists to “join Scott’s army.”

Graham also warned the coalition planned to hold lawmakers accountable for actions which hurt Florida’s environment.

“We want to alert the voters in 2012 who was responsible for what happened in 2011,” Graham said.

Teamsters have ousted the Florida Police Benevolent Association as the union representing state correctional officers, ending almost four decades of dominance by the PBA.

In balloting for a bargaining unit, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters drew 4,097 votes to 3,015 for the PBA. The International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) was supported by 116 officers and another 154 called for no union, according to results made public Thursday by the state’s Public Employees Relations Commission.

The Teamsters union ran a intense campaign for the past six months. They raised questions among officers about the PBA’s representation at a time when pay freezes and legislative efforts to close prisons and privatize others in South Florida heightened anxiety among the state’s 20,000 correctional officers.

“I think the officers showed in this election that in tough times, they want a tough union to represent them,” said Leigh Strope, a Teamsters’ spokeswoman.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander is turning up the heat on the University of South Florida, after the State University System’s Board of Governor’s approved a slow rollout of plans to make USF-Polytechnic an independent university in his home Polk County.

The Lake Wales Republican wants the State University System to investigate USF President Judy Genshaft and other school leaders for what he said was misleading the system’s Board of Governors on details about construction at the Polytechnic’s campus. The BOG set benchmarks for the Lakeland school to achieve before it’s considered as the state’s 12th public university, but stopped far short of giving the school outright independence.

“As Polytechnic moves forward and begins the necessary steps to transition from a regional campus to Florida’s 12^th university, I believe it is imperative to correct the record and draw public attention to this campaign of misinformation,” Alexander said, in a letter to BOG Chair Ava Parker.

A Tallahassee judge has ordered Gov. Rick Scott‘s administration to “cease and desist” the bidding process for a prison privatization plan she earlier ruled was unconstitional.

Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford late Friday night put the brakes on Department of Corrections officials’ attempt to bypass her earlier decision that the way lawmakers ordered the privatization of the 18-county region in the southern portion of the start violated the state constitution.

In her order, Fulford pointed out that corrections officials reneged on a pledge made Thursday not to move forward with the bidding before a Nov. 16 hearing. Later the same day, the department announced it was reopening the procurement and bids would be accepted after Nov. 10, Fulford wrote.

Fulford ruled on Sept. 30 that lawmakers should not have included the privatization plan in the must-pass state budget but instead should have ordered it in a stand-alone bill.

Scott opted not to appeal, but Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a last-minute appeal late Monday on behalf of state lawmakers, setting the stage for Friday’s court showdown.

In granting the emergency stay to the Florida Police Benevolent Association, Fulford wrote that “defendants are not likely to succeed on the merits on appeal.”

(more…)

House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders offered strategic advice Wednesday to ruling Republicans while making a few political predictions, as well.

The Key West lawmaker said he expected that GOP leaders will deliberately slow down budget talks next year – likely leaving the bulk of budget-making for a special session.

 When lawmakers convene in January, Saunders forecast that the Republican-controlled Legislature will move quickly to approve a redistricting plan, submitting it for court approval.

 If rejected by judges, that would give lawmakers time to craft another plan before the scheduled end of the two-month regular session.

The budget, though, will be kept back by leaders, Saunders said, to maintain control over rank-and-file lawmakers.

“It’d be nice to have that budget still sitting out there, to have some leverage over your members,” said Saunders, who a decade ago helped lead redistricting for the then-Democratic majority.

Saunders said that because of declining population in some Republican-heavy areas – including Pinellas County – as many as eight GOP House members may find themselves scrambling for political turf now held by a fellow House Republican.

Those wounded by final decisions are likely to have little loyalty to leaders, Saunders suggested.

“There’s going to be a lot more upset Republican members than Democratic members,” Saunders said.

Democrats? “They’ve pretty much bottomed us out. It’d be hard to draw maps worse than what we have now he said.

Staggered by two major budget shortfalls in the past year, the state court system needs a more reliable cash source than the rollercoastering foreclosure fees lawmakers have steered its way, officials told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Polk County Circuit Court Judge John Laurent, who helped lead a workgroup of  judges and court clerks, urged the Senate Budget Committee to allow courts to keep more of the fees and service charges they already collect, but which are skimmed off for use in other state budget areas.

Judges and clerks also recommended that certain basic costs — salaries for judges, interpreters and court reporters — should come from state dollars, rather than from fees, the workgroup said in its report to lawmakers.

Close to $300 million in revenue raised by the courts are plowed into general revenue and other areas of government, officials said. If courts had been authorized to keep a larger portion of that money, they would have avoided shortfalls that are projected to demand $153 million in emergency loans in just over a year.

Court clerks needed a $44.2 million bailout last year and are seeking another $36 million to get through March 2012.

Earlier this year, the shortfall forced chief judges in Palm Beach County and other counties to consider employee layoffs, furloughs and other emergency measures. 

“This is not a question of us overspending our budget,” said Laurent, a former state senator. “The moneys have not been appropriated to our trust fund to support our budget.”

Central to the court’s woes: foreclosure fees.

 The trust fund that powers the $1 billion court and clerk system draws the bulk of its financing through these feees. But the court system’s cash flow was disrupted late last year by a nationwide freeze on foreclosures by most major lenders.

“It’s not a good, stable situation,” conceded Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, also questioned the Legislature’s approach in making the court system so reliant on fees.

Without providing specifics, Negron said some fees charged Floridians for court activities are too high — warning that it could lead to legal decisions that amounted to ”cash-register justice.”

“The court system has become too dependent on churning out revenue,” Negron said, adding that more state dollars should be directed to courts. ”This thing has gotten out of whack.”

The workgroup’s full report is here:    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/