Overall, the "savings" in the new budget is $2.8 billion. The budget will be voted on Wednesday.
Among the key things on the chopping block:
$20 million from the Florida Forever program that buys up land for conservation purposes. This effectively shuts down the program for the year. I wonder how much of Florida's beauty will be destroyed in that year.
$480 million in education funding. This is shameful. We already have the lowest spending in the country on education and this will make it worse at a time when we also have the lowest graduation rate in the country. Like I said, mortgaging our future.
$321 million in construction projects, which could be good or bad, depending on what the projects are.
$437 million in other cuts. I'd like to see more details on these, although I have a feeling we aren't talking about good cuts here.
$1.5 million cut from the governor's office. Not a lot of money is saved here, but it's at least a good sign that the governor is going to face some of the same kinds of cuts everyone else is.
$100,000 by getting rid of a state aircraft. Okay, this one is definitely a good idea, too. It saves little money, but it is a good symbolic gesture.
One bright spot is nursing homes, which through a bit of budget creativity (why couldn't they have done this elsewhere?), will gain funding through cuts because they'll be able to qualify for more federal grants. I wonder how many other federal grants we didn't get because nobody tried to get them.
The other aspect of the "compromise" budget wherein there were really few compromises and few changes apart from what Republicans came to Tallahassee with is raids of various trust funds, some of which are permanent. Here's what they are taking:
$700 million from the Chiles fund, designed to pay for child welfare, child and elderly health care programs and anti-smoking efforts. The money is supposedly going to be paid back, unless there is an emergency. Who wants to bet that "emergency" has already been designated and this money won't be paid back? And since this fund pays for these programs based solely on the interest, this is a huge cut, taking out more than half the assets in the fund, meaning little is left to pay for these vital programs.
$190 million from a trust fund designed to provide low-income housing. I can't imagine that we'll have any need for low-income housing during a depression. At least we'll have good roads to drive on, thanks to Mike Fasano, who saved money for them (but not for any people, apparently).
$400 million from the Budget Stabilization Fund. This is a terrible idea considering the state of the economy and the almost universal projections of further economic decline. As Alex Sink said, this could leave us unable to meet our obligations down the road if things keep getting worse.
$381 million from other trust funds. Obviously, I'd have to know more about which trust funds to know if this is a good idea. Based on the rest of this crappy budget, I'm guessing these are bad things to be stealing money from.
And they propose increasing traffic fines, dropping the ability to get discounted fines for going to traffic school and taking away the power of judges to waive fines. Seems pretty clear that these increased taxes will disproportionately affect people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum -- increasing taxes on the poor.
Senate Democrats all voted against this proposed budget, except for waste of space Gary Siplin.
The problem looks to get worse, too, as the deficit for next year is projected to be over $4 billion. I can't imagine what they'll cut next time.
William March had this to add:
The legislation implementing the cuts is almost too difficult for a laymen, including reporters, to follow unaided.
Weren't Crist and the Republicans supposed to bringing "plain language" to the government? Another broken promise. Add it to the lists of promises our Republican leaders have broken to the Florida public since they came to office. There are so many of them, no one will even notice this new one.
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