TALLAHASSEE - House lawmakers voted Wednesday to slash the current state budget by $517 million, despite the protests of Democrats who tried in vain to blunt the cuts to education.
State revenue is falling short for the remaining fiscal year and next by as much as $3 billion, leaving lawmakers with the daunting task of making up the difference with budget cuts. With $325 million of the proposed cuts for the current year coming from K-12 and higher education, Gov. Charlie Crist and Democrats are urging GOP lawmakers to cushion the blow by digging into state reserves, but the House and Senate continue to reject that approach.
"Good business doesn't always equal good politics," said Rep. Ray Sansom, R-Destin, Policy and Budget Council chairman and speaker-designate for the House, who repeated his objections to shoring up the budget through expanded gambling, raiding reserves, borrowing or raising taxes. "We are not going to spend money we don't have."
Looking ahead to the coming fiscal year, GOP lawmakers touted plans to free up state funding by eliminating bureaucratic red tape and shrinking state government. Democrats have countered with proposals to raise money by ending tax exemptions and loopholes, but neither party has found a solution that comes anywhere close to closing the $2.5 billion gap in 2008-2009, apart from cutting deeply into the budget.
The House passed its budget cuts for the 2007-2008 fiscal year along party lines with a 75-41 vote. The Senate takes up its budget plan today, followed by conference negotiations between the two chambers to finalize a joint proposal.
Of the 11 amendments offered by House Democrats on Wednesday, the only one that succeeded would restore $8 million for a bonus program that rewards nationally board-certified K-12 teachers.
The Senate has not restored the money in its budget, but House Schools and Learning Council chairman Joe Pickens said he expected to resolve the issue with the Senate today.
The vote to restore the bonus money was a rare moment of bipartisan accord during House proceedings, which quickly turned caustic as debate over reducing cuts to college financial aid devolved into sniping back and forth between the parties. Democrats demanded to know how many private college students would lose any or all of their financial aid grants as a result of proposed cuts, only to learn from Pickens, R-Palatka, that the proposed cut would remove only excess money from the fund and deny aid to no one.
Democrats also lost fights over the House plan to cut funding for public schools by $233 million.
"We recently got an 'F' for spending on public schools by Education Week," said Rep. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, D-Miami, who proposed restoring the funds by dipping into reserves. "So I guess after today, it will be F-minus. But again, it doesn't have to be this way."
Community Colleges Not Spared
Her amendment failed, as did those to shield universities from a proposed cut of nearly $50 million and to spare community colleges from a $21 million cut. The Senate is proposing similar reductions.
Pickens said the community college cut was especially hard to swallow, given the fact that the colleges have maintained an open-door admissions policy in spite of last fall's budget cuts.
"This is the reduction that I least wanted to make," he said. "It is correct that when the economy is down, enrollment in community colleges goes up."
But as with K-12 school funding, he said, the cut reduces the increase in funding that community colleges received this year over 2006-07 funding levels.
A hotly contested $4.5 million cut to the state court system resurfaced in debate as well, with opponents charging that it falls short of meeting the constitutional requirement of the Legislature to fund the third branch of government.
"It doesn't say we can provide partial funding, it doesn't say that we can short-change the courts when there is a recession," said Rep. Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach. "It's written in plain English - we must fund the courts."
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