Following is the Tallahassee Democrats coverage of the most moronic, disgraceful, theft of public monies perpetrated on the citizens of Florida in ages:
Updated: Republican lawmakers approve $2.8 billion state-budget fix
By Jim Ash, Stephen Price and Bill Cotterell • Florida Capital Bureau • January 14, 2009
updated 4:25 p.m.
Over the heated objection of Democrats, Republican lawmakers on Wednesday approved a $2.8 billion package of budget cuts, reserve sweeps and fee increases to conclude an emergency special session called to deal with a budget crisis.
Schools and social services programs will be hit hardest by $1.2 billion in budget cuts, including a $140 per-student, $466 million reduction to public schools and $130 million in Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals.
Motorists will soon be feeling the sting of higher traffic fines, including a $10 across the board increase on all infractions and a $25 increase in speeding fines.
Democrats railed against Republicans for rebuffing their calls for a $1 a pack tax on cigarettes that supporters claim would eventually raise $700 million.
Republicans called the estimate unreliable.
Democrats also complained that conservative House members refused to consider Gov. Charlie Crist's call for a $100 million compact with the Seminole Indian Tribe for expanded casino gambling.
"We offered up options to those in the front rows," said Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee. "When these options aren't heard, Floridians don't win. And when Floridians don't win, our children are left behind."
Crist told reporters earlier in the week that he was not pleased with the education cuts and considering using his line-item veto powers to reverse some of them. Before the final vote on Wednesday, Crist criticized cuts to teacher merit pay programs.
"I think it's important that we recognize the work of our public school teachers and particularly those who are doing exceptionally well," Crist said. "To revisit that issue is important."
Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell, a former House speaker, said the belt tightening will cost his institution $12.8 million.
"It's tough and you'll see it next fall when the students show up. The classes will be bigger, there'll be fewer faculty, fewer programs, you know, those are the type of things that will really start," he said. "We just don't have any more wiggle room. Between now and July 1, it's going to get really, really ugly."
The fallout was already reverberating across the street at the Leon County Courthouse. Advocates for the disabled filed a lawsuit in Leon circuit court against the state's Agency for Persons with Disabilities.
The suit, filed by the federally backed Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities, charges that budget cuts will cause "immediate and irreparable harm" to thousands of people who depend on a home- and community-based assistance program.
Republicans argued just as vehemently that Floridians, already struggling through the worst recession since World War II, shouldn't be asked to pay more.
"We all know that at the end of the day, the teachers will teach and the students will learn," said Rep. Ellen Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale. "We have a constitutional obligation to balance the budget. The last thing we should do is raise taxes."
Besides the budget cuts, lawmakers also chose to dramatically drain state reserves.
One of the largest diversions, $700 million, comes from the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund.
Lawmakers agreed to pay back the fund with revenue from President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus package that could shower the states with as much as $800 billion.
The Legislature also drained $400 million from the Budget Stabilization Fund, the state savings account of last resort. The fund must be repaid starting in three years.
Both chambers agreed to forestall any further cuts to the state's beleaguered state court system. Instead, they voted to raise traffic fines and allow judges to impose court fines even in cases where adjudication of guilt is withheld. The move is expected to raise $15 million for prosecutors and public defenders for the remainder of this year and $55 million next year.
But a 2 percent, $48 million reduction in prison system spending will force the layoff of probation officers and increase offender-to-probation officer ratios from 84-to-1 to 113-to-1, warned Department of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil.
"I'm going to do everything I can to look at other places in our administration, to lessen the cuts that we have. If I can take dollars from other areas to offset the cuts they're making in probation, I'll certainly do that."
For the first time in nearly 20 years, the Legislature is also suspending the state's signature environmental land-buying program, Florida Forever, which every year issues $300 million in bonds. Programs managers have only issued $50 million in bonds this year, and lawmakers estimate that the suspension will save the state $20 million in the next 12 months.
Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Vero Beach, quickly pointed out that the program has spent $2 billion over the past 8 years and that preservation projects already underway won't be hurt. When the program resumes next year, new appraisals will lower land values and stretch the state dollars further, Poppell said.
"Remember, this is just a one-year deal," he said.
The Senate led the way early in the afternoon, with a 27-13 final vote. Sen. Gary Siplin of Orlando cast that chamber's only Democratic vote in favor of the plan. The House followed suit later in the day with a 74-43 vote, with Democrats opposed.Add to Technorati Favorites
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