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.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos has fast-tracked two privatization bills, referring them to a single committee before they head to the floor for a full vote.

Haridopolos sent the bills to the Rules Committee that yesterday agreed to allow the measures to get a full vetting.

One of the measures (SB 2038) resurrects a prison privatization plan shot down by a Tallahassee judge last year because of the manner in which lawmakers ordered the outsourcing of the 18-county region of southern Florida’s corrections operations.

The other proposal (SB 2036) deals with Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford’s ruling in the prison privatization case. Under that bill, lawmakers would be able to privatize any state functions by including the outsourcing in the budget state and without having public input until after the deals are done.

Although the privatization effort was not heard in any committees last year, the budget committee debated the proposal after it appeared one of the spending bills, Thrasher pointed out. He said he’s scheduled his next meeting, when the bills will be heard, to run for nearly four hours.

“It will get a full hearing,” Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said. “We will take those bills up first and we will take whatever time is necessary.”

Lawmakers have not, however, before taken time to debate the measure giving them the ability to include privatization directly in the budget.

“Because we hadn’t had the court decision. Now we’ve got the court decision,” Thrasher said.

After slashing education spending by $1.3 billion earlier this year, Gov. Rick Scott is now asking school superintendents to help get his $1 billion budget boost for public schools passed. And he reiterated his vow to veto any budget that “does not significantly increase state funding for education” in a letter to school superintendents sent today.

Scott included the $1 billion education increase in his $66.4 billion election-year budget proposal after hearing from Floridians that they want more spent on schools, he said. Scott also said that education is the cornerstone of his plan to bring more jobs to the state.

“If you support the budget I am proposing, please let your legislators know. Now that I have presented my budget recommendations, it’s their turn to listen, just as I have done. Please join me in advocating for the children of our state and Florida’s economic future,” Scott wrote.

More than 30,000 new students will enroll in Florida public schools, requiring an additional $200 million over current spending, Scott wrote. And school districts are facing a $220 million reduction in ad valorem taxes, meaning lawmakers will have to pump nearly $500 million more into education to break even.

His plan would bring average per-pupil spending in Florida to $6,372, a $142 increase over the current year but still well below the $7,126 high in 2008.

“As I have listened to the challenges described by teachers, parents and administrators during the past few months, all have urged me to increase the state’s commitment to education. That is my plan, and I ask for your help in making that plan a reality for Florida’s students,” Scott wrote.

The governor once again threw down the gauntlet to lawmakers, many of whom have balked at his plan to beef up education spending by squeezing $2 billion out of Medicaid payments to hospitals.

“Every educator, student, parent and business leader should know: I will not sign a budget from the Legislature that does not significantly increase state funding for education,” Scott wrote.

Although he supports prison privatization and is committed to a broad expansion of it in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he disapproves of the legislature’s use of the state budget to establish policy – exactly how lawmakers ordered the privatization this spring.

“I should have the power to veto things that are major policy changes. I got elected as governor to mamke decisions on behalf of all the citizens of the state and to watch how all the money was spent. I ran a whole campaign on accountability,” Scott told reporters after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

Scott appeared to be siding with a Tallahassee judge who ruled last week that the legilsature’s inclusion of the prison privatization effort in the state budget was unconstitutional.

In her ruling against Scott’s administration last week, Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford wrote that, if the legislature wanted to expand the prison privatization, it “must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act.’”

Scott said he hasn’t decided yet whether to appeal Fulford’s ruling, but was confident the 18-county region privatization of 29 prisons ordered by lawmakers would eventually take place.

“We’re going to do prison privatization in the state as long as we save money. I believe that we’re going to save a lot of money,” he said. During his campaign for governor, Scott said he wanted to slash prison spending by $1 billion – about half of DOC’s total budget.

Still, Scott said he’d like it if lawmakers restrict the budget to spending matters.

“That would be nice,” he said.

Chanting “Pink Slip Rick,” dozens of left-leaning activists staged a protest as Gov. Rick Scott addressed a gathering of the media in St. Petersburg.

Florida Watch Action, Progress Florida and Awake the State organized the protest to coincide with Scott’s speech and more than a hundred new laws went into effect today.

As of today, teachers, firemen, police officers and other state workers will have to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions. And more than 4,500 state workers will lose their jobs under the new $69.1 billion budget that also goes into effect today. Lawmakers also slashed education spending, all part of an effort to fill a $3.62 billion budget gap.

Wearing a “Governor Scott Enemy of the State” T-shirt, Madeira Beach teacher Mary Niemeyer held a sign decrying the state’s education cuts. “Our future is at stake,” she said.

Middle school teacher Steve Adams and his wife Mary drove from Lakeland to participate in the protest across the street from the waterfront Renaissance Vinoy Hotel where the Florida Press Association and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors held their annual meeting.

“I object to the way teachers and public employees have been the ones forced to pay for Florida’s deficit,” Adams, 67, said.

While the protest may have little – if any – impact on Scott, Adams, who said he did not vote for the first-term governor, said it and similar events have worked.

“The tea party made a difference and this is how they started. So we should take a lesson,” Adams said.

Gov. Rick Scott‘s got the $69.7 billion budget to sign today, but the state’s spending plan will likely be considerably leaner after the first-year governor is done.

Scott is expected to make history by red-lining in excess of Gov. Charlie Crist‘s record-setting $459.2 million in vetoes in 2007, also the governor’s first year as state CEO.

Scott’s turned the budget signing ceremony into a public spectacle in The Villages, a favorite stumping ground for the conservative Republican, where he’ll be surrounded by tea party supporters. Previous governors have held more subdued signing events inside the Capitol.

Those who can’t make it to Central Florida can watch Scott wield his veto pen via the internet.

Log onto http://www.rickscottforflorida.com/livestream/ shortly before 1 p.m. to join in.

Sen. Joe Negron slammed Florida TaxWatch’s annual budget “turkey” list, calling it a “media gimmick” based on the “mistaken rationale that budget decisions originating from the executive branch come clothed with a presumption of correctness while ideas from the elected representatives of the people should be viewed with suspicion.”

TaxWatch released the list to help Gov. Rick Scott with his veto pen. Scott is expected to sign the budget and red-line items of his choice Thursday afternoon.

Negron, a Stuart Republican who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee and was once the House’s budget chief, called out TaxWatch staff for the manner in which they arrived at $203 million in pork.

TaxWatch’s turkey criteria include items – more than half the total turkey list – that landed in the budget during or after conferences where budget negotiators from the House and Senate resolve differences between their two spending plans. Many of the items that eventually wound their way into the budget that way had never previously been discussed or proposed by either chamber.

TaxWatch’s “added in conference” category is “a flimsy basis to disparage a budget expenditure,” Negron said in a statement.

“The conference process is a meaningful and significant component of the appropriations enterprise. Conference provides an open and transparent opportunity for the House and Senate to negotiate an agreed upon budget and to take a concluding look at the Appropriations Act to determine final priorities. Many proposed funding items are reduced or eliminated during this review process,” he wrote.

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.

Being No. 3 isn’t good enough for Gov. Rick Scott. He wants to be the top dog.

Chief Executive magazine recently ranked Florida the third best in the nation for doing business, behind second-place winner North Carolina and top-ranked Texas. The survey of CEOs has placed the Lone Star state above all others for the seventh year in a row, prompting a challenge from Scott to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Scott frequently tips his hat to Perry and looks to reforms in his state as models for what Florida should do.

Scott today wrote Perry a letter telling him to watch his back.

“Not only have you achieved this top ranking this year, you have achieved it seven years in a row. Like everything else Texas does, you have done it in a BIG way,” Scott wrote. “However, I must tell you: Seven years is long enough.”

Scott neglects to mention that among the big things Texas has is a budget deficit of as much as $27 billion – more than seven times greater than the $3.6 billion spending gap Florida lawmakers struggled to close this year. The Texas legislature is facing a potential special session to deal with their budget mess.

Back in the Sunshine State, however, Florida is “eliminating job killing regulation, reducing the size and cost of government, and making sure we have the best educated workforce,” Scott boasts.

“We have no personal income tax and are phasing out the business tax, starting with eliminating it entirely for half the business that paid it. Florida is definitely on the road to be number one. Thank you for giving us the motivation we needed.”

Gov. Rick Scott remained upbeat on FoxNews this morning despite the final launch of the Endeavor shuttle, taking with it 7,500 jobs in the Space Coast.

Scott said the imminent shrinking of the Kennedy Space Center presents an opening for his “seven steps to 700,000 jobs” plan.

“We’ve got a great opportunity because of all the talent in that part of the state. There’s a lot of defense manufacturers that we’re talking to. There’s companies all over the world that are talking about coming to Florida, in particular the Space Coast because of the talent of all the employees,” he said.

The state’s cheerleader-in-chief took ownership of the nearly $70 billion budget lawmakers finalized last weekend and kept on message despite repeatedly dour reminders of the state’s high unemployment rate and foreclosures among the highest in the nation.

“I just finished the session where we reduced our taxes, our business taxes, our property taxes, the size of government.
We’re making this the place where people want to do business. And we’re going to get that part of the state back to work,” Scott said from Orlando. We’re coming back. Our tourism business is up. Our ag business is doing very well. We’ve got the shipping coming from the extension of the Panama Canal…Our state is getting back to work. And my plan – seven steps to 700,000 jobs – is getting implemented through our budget, through our session, so we’re headed in the right direction.”

Lawmakers approved a $69.7 billion spending plan and quietly ended the 2011 legislative session at 3:35 a.m. without any pomp and circumstance.

Instead, the 60-day session ended with Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon publicly rebuking each other over with Haridopolos accusing Cannon of playing “silly games” and Cannon claiming to “take the high road” by rejecting a controversial Senate tax break.

Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, called his members back after 2 a.m. this morning to take up a tax-break proposal that includes a three-day sales tax holiday for back-to-school shoppers after the House stripped out a tax break for at least one greyhound dog track in Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher’s district.

Haridopolos apologized for asking them to return about an hour after he sent them home and instructed them the session would reconvene at 10 a.m.

Shortly before Haridopolos recalled the Senate, Cannon gaveled down the House without passing two claims bills that were Haridopolos priorities. Eric Brody was set to get $12 million from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for an accident more than a decade ago that left him severely disabled, and William Dillon was slated to get less than $1 million after being wrongfully imprisoned for nearly three decades for a crime he didn’t commit.

“They should have been served today by this legislature. Politics got in the way today and I’m embarrassed,” he said.
Gov. Rick Scott left the building around midnight as the legislative session devolved into chaos. Scott had been scheduled to participate in the ceremonial white hanky drop but instead went home to bed because he had a busy schedule this weekend, his spokesman Brian Burgess said.

The House approved the budget shortly before 2 a.m., about two-and-a-half hours after the Senate and following some very hard feelings between the two chambers.

The House then took up the disputed tax break bill (CS/SB 7203).

But the House remained angered by the Senate’s killing a pair of professional deregulation bills earlier in the night — with House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, saying that move broke an agreement between the two chambers.

“In light of the Senate’s inability to meet that obligation, I’ve decided that our chamber would take the high road…and send it all to the Senate tonight, and leave no ambiguity,” Cannon said.

The House took up the tax-break bill, voted to remove the Jacksonville track provision, repackaged the measure as HB 143 and sent it back to the Senate. With the budget behind them, and the tax-break package structured to their liking, Cannon and House members adjourned at 2:07 a.m., Saturday.

(more…)

Plans to dramatically revamp Florida pensions at the state and city levels appeared headed Friday toward the finish line — far short of where Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers had initially proposed.

House and Senate negotiators have settled on extracting 3 percent paycheck contributions from 655,000 teachers, police, firefighters and other government employees enrolled in the Florida Retirement System, part of an effort to pull $1.1 billion into the state’s recession-strapped budget.

But a plan to scrap the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) has been abandoned,  House and Senate negotiators agreed. The House had wanted to bar the lucrative early retirement program to new enrollees in July; the Senate in 2016.

But what emerged Friday night from House lead negotiator Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, was a proposal to reduce the 6.5 percent interest rate paid on DROP benefits to 1.3 percent. The move will save $81 million, if agreed to by Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Wellington, the Senate’s lead negotiator on the Florida Retirement System.

Among other changes nearing agreement are a plan to increase the retirement age for new enrollees in the FRS from age 62 to 65.  An existing 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment would be eliminated for service earned after July 1, with Workman saying the goal being that it would be reinstated in 2016.

That change save $404.8 million, analysts said.

Meanwhile, plans to revamp municipal pensions also have been scaled-back. (more…)

The Florida Senate will be in session on Saturday, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said.

Haridopolos has ordered the rare weekend session to try to finish up work before the scheduled end of the legislative session next Friday.

“We want to give everyone the opportunity on a bill to have their voice heard. I think that’s worked out very well for us. It’s reduced a lot of the tension,” said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island.

Haridopolos, who is running for U.S. Senate, said that lawmakers would be in town anyway as they negotiate differences between the two chambers’ budgets and other priority bills.

“It just makes sense that we would have a Saturday session and make the best use our time since we’re all going to be here anyway,” he said.

Adding to the delay is a postponement to a Senate Budget Committee meeting where an immigration package hangs in the balance as GOP leaders from the House and Senate try to work out a deal with Gov. Rick Scott before taking a floor vote.

That meeting won’t meet today, Haridopolos said, but could meet tomorrow, making it possible the Senate could take up its immigration proposal on Saturday.

House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos made an unusual joint address Tuesday morning to the state House, praising the work – and their friendship — which they said led to the framework of a budget deal unveiled earlier in the day.

“We’re poised to bring this thing in for a landing on time,” said Cannon, R-Winter Park, with an eye on the session’s scheduled May 6 close.

Plenty of differences stand between the two sides. But setting budget allocations — as the two sides did Tuesday – sets the stage for public negotiations to begin Wednesday morning. As usual, Tuesday’s horse-trading was conducted behind closed doors between the leaders – belying Florida’s government in the sunshine constitutional standard.

Cannon apparently was satisfied when the Senate agreed to put on a ballot next year his demand for a proposed overhaul of the Florida Supreme Court — which rejected three constitutional amendments approved last year by state lawmakers.

Even with the court deal, Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, and his House counterpart, Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, traded harsh words. And Alexander accused Cannon of “gamesmanship.”

“I really applaud the speaker. He is my friend. And this friendship really, really made a difference as we got through this difficult time,” said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, after leaving the House floor. “Yesterday was really and up and down day.”

Haridopolos wouldn’t say what the Senate earned in return for the court concession. But he did acknowledge that some of the focus now is on sated Gov. Rick Scott, who is demanding a reduction in the state’s corporate income tax — part of $2 billion in tax cuts he demanded in his budget blueprint.

“I think you’ll see tax relief within this budget,” Haridopolos said. “We’re going to find out where the most support is, and we’re going to find out where the most support is within the various tax relief items.”

The House and Senate have agreed to budget allocations — a broad spending agreement that allows lawmakers to now begun negotiating tomorrow on differences between the two sides, House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos announced Tuesday.

The move comes after tough words were exchanged a day earlier between the two sides. But even more significantly, the Senate abandoned its resistence to putting on next year’s ballot a Cannon plan to overhaul the Florida Supreme Court.

It also gives lawmakers some hope of ending the legislative session May 6 — the final scheduled day of the 60-day session.

“Resolving a budget shortfall of nearly $4 billion is a tall order, but I’m pleased the House and Senate wored through this difficult process,” said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island. “Our allocations ensure that we preserve our bond ratings by maintaining adequate reserves. Most importantly, we do not take money out of the struggling Florida economy by increasing taxes or fees.”

Haridopolos apparently is overlooking the tuition increases, pay cuts to government employees, reduced education financial aid and possible increases to property insurance, telephone and electricity rates that are either part of the state budget or still in play as lawmakers roll through the legislative homestretch.

Cannon said he would announce his House budget negotiating team this afternoon, with the Senate also naming its deal-makers. The conference committee’s first meeting is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Stalled budget talks between the two chambers aren’t much of a concern to Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who showed up at the Senate Budget Committee this afternoon to speak in favor of a joint resolution telling Congress to balance the federal budget.

“The good news is that we are in our side-by-side spending the same amount of money and we’re not going to raise taxes or fees,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said. “We’re going to be here every day working hard…We’re going to work this out.”

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander and his House counterpart Denise Grimsley haven’t agreed on the allocations for the major areas of the state spending plan. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said he made an offer to the House on Thursday evening but hasn’t heard back yet with just two weeks left in the 2011 legislative session.

Haridopolos said he’s not worried about finishing up on time as Alexander and his cohorts carve nearly $4 billion from last year’s budget – with no stimulus funds to help soften the cuts.

“We’ve never seen reductions like this. This is the real deal,” he said.

Haridopolos, who’s running in the U.S. Senate GOP primary, said he’s “in no rush” to hit the campaign trail and said he intends to keep up the hectic pace established since the session began.

“I’m dedicated that however long it takes we will be here, working on the weekends, late into the nights. I’m a college teacher…I’m used to pulling all-nighters. We might have to do it again here to make sure we finish. But I’m here. The Senate will be here. We’re ready to negotiate and we are negotiating,” he said.

Paul Clark, aka “The Library Guy,” was a familiar presence in the Capitol last year as he stood silently in busy hallways holding a sign urging lawmakers to fully fund the $21.2 million in state aid to libraries to keep federal funds flowing.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, credited Clark with the last-minute addition of the complete funding and advised other advocates to take a tip from the soft-spoken librarian. Clark’s efforts also won him a national “I Love My Librarian” award in December, and he was recently named Florida’s “Librarian of the Year.”

Clark was back in town on Wednesday, accompanied by his sons Jacob, 11, and Joseph, 10, who handed out bookmarks to lobbyists and lawmakers trekking along the bridge connecting the Capitol with the Knott Building, prime real estate according to the Clay County systems librarian.

Clark said he positioned himself at the top of the long hallway so that he’d be in plain sight as budget conferees made the long walk down the bridge as they headed into meetings during the harried final days of the 2010 session. And he stood at the opposite end when the meetings were over.

“You have to be noticed. You’ve got to be approachable, but you have to know your facts,” Clark said. That shows lawmakers “you’re not a total nut case.”

With a $3.8 billion budget deficit, there’s no money in the Senate spending plan for libraries right now, and Clark won’t be around to plead with lawmakers to put it in. He used up all his vacation time last year and has to (apologies to Gov. Rick Scott) get back to work.

Wednesday morning, Clark met briefly with Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, a visit he’s been trying to nail down for months, he said.

Carroll expressed a great deal of interest in his fact sheet, Clark said, giving him hope that libraries may not be forgotten this year, even in his absence.

SunPass users can breathe a sigh of relief. Senate President Mike Haridopolos said lawmakers won’t take away the discounts on toll roads, reversing what the Senate did yesterday.

“The discount stays. Period,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told reporters during his weekly Q-and-A this morning.

The Senate had scrapped the SunPass discounts, which vary on different toll roads, as part of its plan to merge some of the state’s turnpike authorities.

Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, tried to amend the bill to keep the discounts intact but Haridopolos ruled on a voice vote that Norman’s amendment lacked the two-thirds majority to pass.

Critics said that doing away with the discounts could be considered a tax increase, a potential no-no for conservative Republicans, including U.S. Senate candidates like Haridopolos.

“That is something where there is a legitimate debate going on. Is that a discount or not? How will that be described?” Haridopolos.

Haridopolos said he told Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, who backed the proposal because it would add back about $100 million to the transportation budget that could be bonded to create up to $1 billion in road projects, it’s off the table.

Haridopolos changed his mind within 12 hours of the vote yesterday after talking with other senators and “after taking my opinion,” he said.

“As I got more engaged I thought the discount’s a good idea. I think it encourages people to purchase the pass, to use the pass and that helps with traffic flow across the state,” Haridopolos said.

Haridopolos said the debate could make SunPass buyers more aware that they get the discount and the ability to fly through toll plazas.

“I’ve let it be known that we will not be adjusting those. The discounts will stay in place. We think that especially as you commute across the state of Florida the best thing to do is to keep those discounts in place,” he said.