House and Senate leaders were still haggling Thursday over a few remaining differences after agreeing to most of the more than $500 million in cuts to this year's nearly $70 billion state budget.
House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, and Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, are expected to sign off on a final deal today with formal passage early next week.
The Senate voted 26-13 on Thursday morning to approve a $504.3 million plan, despite repeated pleas by Democrats to dip into a $1.2 billion "rainy day" fund or to close corporate and sales tax loopholes to soften the blow.
Former Senate President Gwen Margolis of Sunny Isles Beach was the only Democrat who voted for the measure.
Republicans refused to consider raising new taxes in a punishing economic climate and warned that dipping into the emergency "budget stabilization fund" would only delay the inevitable.
"There are very high standards for how you access that fund. I'm not sure how we would be able to pay it back," said Senate budget chief Lisa Carlton, R-Osprey. "It is a road that once you go down, it is very, very difficult to come back from."
The Senate plan was only slightly less punishing than the $518 million in cuts that Republicans pushed through the House the day before.
Negotiators for both chambers agreed to the largest portion of the cuts, public education, within an hour of the Senate vote. The Senate went along with a House proposal to restore $8 million in raises to teachers who earn national board certification.
"The process works," said House negotiator Thad Altman, R-Merritt Island. "This is very big for Brevard County. We have more than 400 teachers who are nationally board certified. They did the right thing and they were about to get their money."
House education chief Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, quickly pointed out that the latest reduction only whittles down a 7 percent per-student spending increase approved last year to a 4.5 percent increase, or $302 per student.
Victor Crist, the Tampa Republican who chairs the criminal justice spending committee, said lawmakers "squeezed" every corner of the budget to find $2.5 million in additional dollars to stave off furloughs for public defenders and prosecutors. The House and Senate agreed late Thursday to a plan that would give the prosecutors and public defenders the authority to share money collected from court fines, with the understanding that not all the money would have to tapped.
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