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.”

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.”

Gov. Rick Scott, who made his controversial millions of dollars in the private health care industry, Wednesday created a commission to examine government-run hospitals in Florida.

The executive order Scott signed creates the Commission on Review of Taxpayer Funded Hospital Districts.

 Before his swearing-in as governor, Scott’s health care transition team issued a report which included a stinging assessment of publicy funded districts, complaining that the hospitals they support largely muscle-out private facilities and may no longer be needed in Florida.

Palm Beach County’s health care district, created 20 years ago, was generally backed by Scott’s advisers at the time. The district’s taxpayer dollars are deployed countywide, not concentrated in one hospital.

“I am confident this new Commission will protect Florida taxpayers,” Scott said.  “At the same time, the commission’s guidance will help provide Floridians a high-quality health care system.”

Scott helped build Columbia/HCA, one of the nations’ biggest health care companies, until his ouster by its board. Three years after his departure, the company paid $1.7 billion to settle federal accusations of Medicare fraud.

 In announcing the commission’s formation, Scott said its goals will include reviewing how doctors are paid at the public hospitals, whether they serve as broad a population as they should, and whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.  The 10-member commission has until next January to complete its findings.

 There are more than 60 hospital or health care districts in Florida.