Palm Beach Post
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Senate approved a $74.3 billion state budget proposal Wednesday, while putting in play additional raises for prison guards, many of whose jobs looked threatened by privatization only a year ago.
The Senate OK’d the budget blueprint (CS/SB 1500) 40-0.
With Democrats and ruling Republicans joining in the unanimous vote, Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said the Senate is in good position for upcoming negotiations with the House on a final spending plan for the year beginning July 1.
“They know that the entire Senate is behind them and they also know the areas where the Senate hopes to make some progress in conference,” Gaetz said of Senate budget chiefs.
The House is scheduled to begin debate on its budget plan today. Lawmakers are working toward reaching a consensus by their scheduled May 3 adjournment.
Dozens of differences divide the proposals, but no real deal-breakers loom, leaders said. All told, a $1 billion surplus stemming from a recovering economy is easing budget-writing this spring.
Among the beneficiaries: state workers, in line for their first pay raises in seven years. Teachers also would draw $2,500 across-the-board increases in the Senate proposal.
But the Senate enhances its proposed 3 percent state worker hike with another $9.7 million set-aside, aimed at giving an additional $2,900 bump to law enforcement officials, including those on the Florida Highway Patrol.
But Sen. Greg Evers, R-Crestview, whose district includes several state prisons, said it was wrong for lawmakers to not extend extra pay to correctional officers.
When several other senators joined in supporting Evers, Senate Budget Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, pointed out that adding guards to the roster of recipients tripled the proposal’s cost, to $30 million.
Evers and others urged Negron to free money from elsewhere in the budget. Negron made no promises but said he would consider it when negotiations with the House begin.
Still, it’s a remarkable shift for the Senate. Republican leaders in the Senate last year were vilified by correctional officers when they pushed what would have been the largest prison privatization effort in U.S. history.
About 3,500 correctional officers across 18 counties, including South Florida and the Treasure Coast, would have been displaced from their state jobs. After tense debate, the move failed on a 21-19 vote in the Senate.
With more money pouring into the budget this year, and last year’s elections changing leaders in the Senate, the chamber seems kinder toward public employees. “We aren’t where we ought to be,” Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said of the Senate’s pay package. “But we are catching up.”
Senators also touted their focus on education in the budget. The plan calls for a $1.2 billion boost in public school spending, increasing per-pupil funding by $373. In boosting dollars for higher education, the Senate also replaced $300 million cut last year from Florida’s 12 public universities.
But still languishing is Gov. Rick Scott’s push for $173.7 million in economic incentives to lure companies to Florida, along with another $135 million cut to the corporate income tax and sales tax on manufacturing equipment.
The Senate would give Scott only $20 million in incentives. Senators have cited concerns about the effectiveness of such giveaways, questions amplified by the recent collapse of the Treasure Coast’s Digital Domain, whose expansion in Florida was helped by state incentive cash.
Negron, the budget chairman, said Wednesday that he thought about $100 million is the level the Senate will ultimately reach for incentives and givebacks. Negron said he was more interested in fattening reserves, which already reach $2.9 billion in the Senate proposal.
“Some of those funds for tax incentives or tax reductions could be put into our reserves to try to get them to the $3 billion mark,” Negron said.
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