Organizers across the political spectrum Friday began taking aim at the state Capitol for next week’s opening of the two-month legislative session.
The Facebook-drive Awake The State protest has about 30 rallies planned Tuesday from Key West to Pensacola — with critics of Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature’s budget-cutting the focus.
Teachers, government employees, cops and firefighters form the core of those pushing back against proposed pension overhauls, but expected reductions in schools and health-care programs are drawing more opponents, said Damien Filer of Progress Florida.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people who say, `this is going to be my first rally of any kind,’” Filer said. “I’ll be interested to see what kind of momentum remains among people after next week.”
A West Palm Beach rally is planned from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday, in the 100 block of Clematis Street.
Tea Party activists expect to counter-punch, with several thousand Scott supporters expected in Tallahassee. (more…)
One of Florida’s biggest business lobbies fired back Wednesday at the Everglades Foundation — disputing a four-month-old report by the environmental group which touted the economic benefits of restoring its namesake, fabled swamp.
“This report is nothing more than wishful thinking with no credible basis for the claims made by the foundation,” said Barney Bishop, president and CEO of AIF. “It is impossible to support the foundation’s assertion that the state will see $4 for every $1 invested in Everglades restoration. Further, it is impossible to even prove the economic benefits will ever cover the costs of the federal Everglades Restoration Plan.”
The foundation in October released a report by Mather Economics which said construction, hydrology and other environmental work tied to the Everglades project was creating jobs and would continue to add value to the South Florida region for years to come.
The foundation aired a similar theme Monday when it released results of a statewide poll showing most Floridians want Everglades restoration to continue, despite Gov. Rick Scott’s recommendation to reduce this year’s funding form $50 million to $17 million.
The state’s pension fund has consistently met its investment goals – fairly average compared to other states– but also is “financially sound,” a report released Monday shows.
The state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) gave the $114 billion Florida Retirement System generally satisfactory marks in its review of the fund, which covers almost 1 million government workers and retirees.
The pension fund is a big target for lawmakers this spring, with Gov. Rick Scott proposing that employees contribute 5 percent of their paychecks to help finance their retirement benefits — saving the state $1.3 billion.
The money could help lawmakers patch a budget shortfall of at least $3.6 billion. But it also could help Scott make good on his campaign promise to reduce property taxes by $1.4 billion, something the GOP governor says he’ll do over the next two years.
As part of his push for changing the fund, Scott warns that the pension fund is on shaky financial footing.
OPPAGA disputes that. Anaysts acknowledge the FRS has a so-called funding ratio of 87.9 percent and currently does not have ”sufficient assets to pay current and future expected benefits for participants and their beneficiaries.”
But, OPPAGA points out, “experts generally consider public pension plans with funding ratios at or above 80 percent to be fiscally sound.”
With environmental spending under fire in Tallahassee and Washington, a survey Monday showed two-thirds of Floridians support Everglades restoration, with a majority also opposed to reducing dollars flowing to the effort.
The Everglades Foundation released the survey, saying it supports the organization’s push for state lawmakers to steer clear of Gov. Rick Scott’s proposal to reduce restoration funding from $50 million to $17 million. Scott also wants water managers, including the South Florida Water Management District, to reduce property taxes by 25 percent, which environmentalists say could further drain dollars needed for Everglades work.
“Our message to the governor is that he can partner with the conservation community to create jobs and protect our water supply at the same time,” said Kirk Fordham, the foundation’s chief executive officer. “If we want to grow that supply of fresh water, the only solution out there is Everglades restoration.”
President Obama’s budget blueprint increases spending on restoration. But the Republican-led U.S. House has proposed sharp cuts in environmental programs and funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for much of the Everglades work.
The Everglades survey was conducted by the Tarrance Group, which does polling for Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, other Republican senators, and GOP members of the Florida congressional delegation.
The survey showed that 84 percent of voters rank maintaining Florida’s fresh water drinking supply as “very important.” Seventy-nine percent agreed that to attract new business and industries to the state, access to a stable water supply is necessary.
The survey of 607 voters was taken Feb. 13-14. It has a 4.1 percent margin-of-error.
Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature’s ruling Republicans have kicked over a political hornet’s nest by promoting budget cuts, pension overhauls and civil justice changes, which are now emerging as targets for statewide rallies by Democratic-allied organizations.
The GOP’s tough medicine for a state pocked by foreclosures and almost 12 percent unemployment may be breathing life into a Florida Democratic Party, virtually left for dead after wholesale election defeats last fall. It also may effectively prove the opening round of the 2012 presidential contest in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
“Democrats last fall were down and outspent,” said Susannah Randolph, campaign manager for defeated Orlando Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and now an organizer of the March 8 rallies.
“Now we’re seeing that we have to respond to a threat level like DEFCON 1,” said Randolph, who also is a leader of Florida Watch Action. “And sure, we want to keep this energy going.”
Using a Facebook page, “Awake The State,” organizers are planning events in most major Florida cities on the legislature’s opening day. Although locations are still being determined, teachers and public employees’ unions, including police and firefighters, are forming the core of those protesting expected cuts in education, pensions and government workforces.
Counter-punching, tea party supporters are rallying behind Scott, and looking to converge on the state Capitol for the session’s launch, which coincides with the new governor’s first State of the State address.
Florida’s spring training season goes beyond baseball. The parties are gearing up for the 2012 campaigns by energizing their political bases around Scott and the Legislature’s plans.
The Florida Supreme Court is asking state lawmakers to approve 80 more judges to handle skyrocketing court filings since the state’s economic downturn.
The state’s court system needs an additional 26 circuit court judges and 54 county court judges, according to the high court.
While they certified the number of new judges, the Supreme Court also acknowledged that the likelihood of getting the funding for them is slim given lawmakers’ struggle to craft a budget with $3.62 billion less to spend than last year.
“With over one million Floridians unemployed and significant deficits in the state budget, we recognize that funding new judgeships will compete with other critical state priorities,” the judges wrote in an order today. “Nonetheless, the reality is that Florida’s circuit and county judges are overloaded with new filings, have substantial caseloads, and have fewer support staff to assist with the disposition of cases. Taken together, these factors continue to hamper the effective administration of justice in Florida.”
Rep. Bill Proctor, a St. Augustine Republican and former head of Flagler College, questioned Scott’s backing $1.7 billion out of the state budget university tuition and fees and fees collected by clerks of courts. Scott’s accounting method allowed him to claim he cut $4.62 billion from the state budget; Scott’s budget director Jerry McDaniel conceded yesterday the real number was closer to $3 billion.
“We all know that those monies will be collected by state agencies and expended for state services,” Proctor lectured McDaniel. “If we follow that logic, we could perhaps pull some more state agencies off the books…and drop our budget down to possibly $60 billion. Am I correct?”
McDaniel agreed: “You could. You could pull more things off and not show it…In theory you could pull every state agency off the books and capture the costs in some other way and show a $0 state budget.”
Tampa tea party activists Karen Jaroch, left, and Sharon Calvert
Tampa tea party activists Sharon Calvert and Karen Jaroch got a 30-minute meeting with Gov. Rick Scott today to tell him about their opposition to the state’s plans for high-speed rail.
The pair, who also attended a tea party rally in Eustis on Monday where Scott rolled out his first-ever budget, said the high-speed rail project is symbolic of wasteful government spending of taxpayers’ money. The federal government has given Florida $2.4 billion for the Tampa-Orlando project, which is expected to cost at least $2.6 billion.
That’s not included cost overruns typical of such projects, the tea partiers pointed out.
“We’ve got to stop the spending,” Calvert told reporters after the meeting with Scott.
As to Scott’s budget, in which he claims to have cut $4.62 billion but in reality reduced spending by closer to $3 billion, the tea partiers were relatively unimpressed.
Gov. Rick Scott’s budget plan includes a tax cut for businesses that would decrease corporate income taxes from 5.5 percent to 3 percent and roll back property taxes by $1 billion, the governor said in Tampa this afternoon.
Scott did not reveal details of how he plans to come up with the savings while also closing a $3.62 billion budget deficit but is scheduled to release his entire budget on Monday in Eustis.
Scott’s also blaming Florida’s budget woes in part on the federal health care law recently struck down by a Pensacola federal judge as unconstitutional.
President Barack Obama threw out a few items in his state of the union speech that sounded as if they could have been lobbed by Gov. Rick Scott.
Obama’s already launched a review of rules and regulations with an eye on getting rid of those that hamstring businesses – the same thing the Republican governor started on his first day in office earlier this month.
And the president plans a massive reorg of the federal government, merging agencies to get rid of redundancies, another plan of Scott’s.
But Scott’s statement issued just after the conclusion of Obama’s hour-long talk didn’t mention any similarites. Instead, Scott derided the president’s “Sputnik moment” while making some big promises about his own budget, scheduled to come out Feb. 7 – three days later than he was supposed to deliver it to state lawmakers.
Gov. Rick Scott brought on fellow health care executive Jack Miles to head the Department of Management Services, an agency the governor has blasted for wasting taxpayer money.
Miles oversaw contract management and purchasing at CIGNA, one of the nation’s biggest health insurers. Scott founded and was formerly CEO of the Columbia/HCA hospital chain and owns Solantic, a chain of health care centers.
Miles slashed spending at CIGNA by $80 million in less than two years, according to a press release issued by the governor’s office announcing the appointment.
“State government has to learn to live within its means, and Jack Miles will make sure that our state spends taxpayer dollars more wisely as we tighten the belt across the entire government,” Scott said in a statement.
Scott will put Miles to work reviewing contracts to see where the state can “reduce costs and increase efficiency,” the release reads.
Scott’s office is now analyzing every state agency contract worth more than $1 million. He said earlier this week he’s looking at saving money on state purchases as a way to plug a $3.62 billion budget deficit.
Cowboy boot-scootin’ Gov. Rick Scott fielded questions from the media today at the annual AP legislative planning session, deflecting questions about how he plans to hand out tax breaks to property owners and businesses while at the same time cutting $3.6 billion in spending.
Scott also shrugged off criticism from the media that his administration has thwarted the state’s broad open government laws by ousting reporters from public meetings, ignoring public records requests and cherry-picking reporters whose coverage he and his aides deem favorable.
“I do press conferences. I do gaggles. Everybody can come to those…I feel very comfortable that we’re very open,” said Scott, whose Q-and-A with reporters today was his second press conference since he took office two weeks ago. He left without answering questions from the media.
Scott said he and his staff are scrubbing the current “bloated” budget – crafted by Republican lawmakers – and reiterated his campaign position that the state spends too much.
“It’s too big. We don’t need to be spending this much money. We don’t do a good enough job with how we buy things,” the former health care CEO said. “All that really requires is that you pick and choose…I look at it like a business. You can’t do everything. You have to pick and choose.”
Scott stuck by his campaign pledge to cut 5 percent of state workers and require state employees to contribute to their pension plans but did not provide details.
Scott, who works out at a local gym with his wife Ann while the governor’s mansion workout room is being revamped, acknowledged that his budget may not win him accolades from critics, especially in a town filled with state employees.
“All the things I said in the campaign, I’m going to work every day to get those things done but there’s going to be plenty of people who don’t like those things,” he said. “By the time the budget comes out I probably won’t be able to work out because everybody will be protesting me.”
With a $3.5 billion budget hole looming, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said it’s highly unlikely that lawmakers will approve any new – or expand any existing – tax breaks for businesses.
That would put Gov. Rick Scott’s plans to do eventually do away with the state’s corporate income taxes on hold, at least for this year.
“I don’t see that happening at this point. That’s something I’d like to do. But we’re $3.5 billion short and the promise of no tax increases, I don’t see the math yet. But Rick Scott is a very able executive. If he and his budget team can find a way to make it happen, we’re going to be all ears,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told reporters during a Q-and-A this afternoon.
No more tax breaks would also put on ice Scott’s proposed expansion of school vouchers paid for by businesses, one of the governor’s top priorities.
“There’s probably no bigger advocate of tax cuts in the legislature,” Haridopolos said. “I’m a big proponent of tax cuts. This is not a year I can afford to push them through.”
State economists gave lawmakers the bad news this morning that Florida’s budget gap is expected to grow by as much as $1 billion.
The News Service of Florida filed this report earlier today:
Amy Baker, executive director of the Legislature’s Office of Eeconomic and Demographic Research, told the Senate budget committee that revenue estimators are likely to downgrade the state’s budget picture when they meet next Tuesday.
“We are starting to show improvement year over year,” Baker said. “It’s just not as strong as we’d hoped for.” Tax collections were $136 million short of expectations for the three months ending in October, with November’s findings still not final but on track to fall another $100 million down, Baker said.
Meanwhile, Medicaid forecasters will meet Friday and Baker warned, “the number is going to be big.” House budget staff on Tuesday told House members that the shortfall was on track to hit about $3.5 billion — up from the earlier $2.5 billion level.
Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island
Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos tapped John Thrasher, head of the Republican Party of Florida, as chairman of the powerful Senate Rules committee and is keeping J.D. Alexander as budget chief.
Haridopolos, who officially takes over the helm on Tuesday, also assigned Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, to lead the chamber’s reapportionment efforts.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville
Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, called Gaetz’s assignment perhaps “the most challenging committee chairmanship of all” because he’ll have to operate under the new reapportionment system approved by voters on Election Day that prohibits drawing districts that favor incumbents or political parties. One of the two constitutional amendments revamping reapportionment is now being challenged in federal court.
Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine
Thrasher, a St. Augustine lawyer and lobbyist who also served as House Speaker, took over the troubled state GOP earlier this year but has said he would step down as chairman after the November elections.
Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales
Alexander, R-Lake Wales, has been in charge of the Senate’s budget for the past two years.
Alexander’s task isn’t an easy one either. He’s expected to have a $2.9 billion spending gap to manage, a new governor – Rick Scott – who wants to slash spending on state government and prisons, and no more federal stimulus funds to help plug the budget hole as he has for the past two years.
The Florida Police Benevolent Society released a 30-second TV ad today bashing GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott’s plan to cut $1 billion from spending on prisons to trim the budget.
A corrections department spokeswoman said Scott’s proposal would wind up shuttering prisons. Shutting down prisons would, of course, result in pink slips for union workers.
The ad says that, under Scott’s plan, “tens of thousands of prisoners could be released early, including murderers, rapists, sex offenders, armed robbers and drug dealers.” It ends with a group of tough-looking men in stripes reciting Scott’s campaign slogan, “Let’s get to work!”
The PBA and the state’s other law enforcement union, the Fraternal Order of Police, are both backing Scott’s Democrat opponent, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.
Gov. Charlie Crist slashed a record $360 million from the state’s $70.4 billion budget today, saying the projects were not properly vetted or benefited only select groups.
Crist’s vetoes include $160 million lawmakers had taken from the state transportation trust fund. Florida House leaders insisted on including the road project money to pay for per-pupil education spending.
Crist also vetoed a reduction in reimbursement rates for Medicaid nursing home providers and axed a portion of the budget that would have prohibited the use of any state funds to pay for human embryonic stem cell research.
Palm Beach County Commission Chairman Burt Aaronson asked Gov. Charlie Crist to keep the lid on his veto pen regarding $175,000 in the state budget for the county’s juvenile assessment center.
Crist, who has until Friday to use his line-item veto on the $70 billion budget, is expected to axe tens of millions of dollars in local projects tucked into the state spending plan. His office is finishing up work on the budget today and is likely to release the final product tomorrow.
The $175,000 is part of a $25.3 million project to design and build a new complex that will house both the county juvenile assessment center and the juvenile detention center and was recommended by state Department of Juvenile Justice.
“We believe housing these two facilities together will enable the Department to provide wraparound services to at-risk families and will lead to increased efficiency in meeting the needs of these children,” Aaronson wrote in a letter to Crist sent yesterday.
The funding is a county priority, Aaronson wrote, to replace the current assessment center shared by the school district, DJJ, the county, the state attorney and others.
DJJ currently leases space from the airport and subleases it to the other agencies, but the lease is scheduled to expire soon.
The budget is online at the Florida House website.
And apologies to Florida House document and budget staffers who’ve been working around-the-clock to get the hefty volume proofread, printed and on-line, for an earlier post.
Hot off the presses, the budget landed on lawmakers desks shortly after 2:30 p.m. this afternoon.
The Senate didn’t give it much attention initially. They were saying good-bye to their colleague, Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, term-limited after 28 (that’s right, 28) years in the legislature.
Lawson, “the Florida legislature’s gentle giant,” according to Senate President Jeff Atwater, is running for Congress against incumbent U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd.
House and Senate budget chiefs are closing in on a final budget, with lawmakers backing off a plan to cut state workers’ salaries and agreeing to a ban on funding for human stem cell research.
For the first time, lawmakers and other high-ranking state workers would have to pay a nominal fee for their health insurance, from $100 a year.
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
