Major issues get little attention
Scott, lawmakers feud over taxes, schools, leave drug crisis, teacher flight, more alone
TALLAHASSEE — A surge in heroin and opioid deaths has some officials calling for Gov. Rick Scott to declare a public health emergency. Florida’s teachers are leaving the profession in droves. And state prisons are struggling to hang on to corrections officers because their pay is so low.
But as the 60-day legislative session nears the halfway point, critical issues such as those are getting scant attention as Scott and legislative leaders clash over taxpayer spending for tourism ads, boosting university budgets and property tax rates.
Since Florida’s recent pill mill crackdown on doctors writing phony prescriptions for Oxycontin, drug users have turned to alternatives such as heroin and fetanyl. Deaths from those drugs reached 1,438 in 2015, a nearly 80 percent increase from the previous year, according to state data. Thousands more non-fatal overdoses are taxing emergency rooms and health networks.
Despite pleas from Senate Democrats and South Florida county commissioners, state leaders
haven’t taken action to combat the crisis.
“This is a problem that needs the attention of the governor, of the Legislature,” said Sen. Perry Thurston, DFort Lauderdale. “I don’t think that I’ve heard a blip about it up here since we’ve gotten here.”
Another long-simmering issue is the low pay and high turnover of state prison guards. Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones says it has her competing with Wal-Mart’s pay scale in some areas and has led to increases in contraband and inmate violence. The average pay for new prison guards is about $30,000 per year.
So far, that problem has received little attention, especially when compared with tax cuts, a top priority for Scott and the Legislature. The Senate’s initial budget proposal released Thursday includes a pay raise for corrections officers and other state workers, but the House budget proposal has none.
What has embroiled Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, is a battle of wills over the fate of two economic development agencies.
Scott has attacked Corcoran personally for pushing bills to eliminate Enterprise Florida and slash funding for Visit Florida. He’s toured the state admonishing House members who voted against him and paid for ads and robocalls in their districts. The combined $161 million he wants for Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida amount to 0.2 percent of this year’s budget.
One longtime Tallahassee watcher says tensions are running higher than usual.
“What strikes me as abnormal is the degree of personal engagement driven primarily by the House and the governor on a number of issues,” said Mac Stipanovich, a veteran lobbyist and GOP consultant.
Asked about the opioid epidemic, Corcoran instead defended the Legislature’s work so far and said he and his counterpart, Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, are tackling major issues and addressing the needs of the state, like improving education and the environment.
Negron wants to buy land south of Lake Okeechobee to prevent chronic water pollution. Corcoran wants to spend up to $200 million to establish privately-run charter schools in the same neighborhoods as perennially failing public schools.
“Senator Negron comes from an area where environmental funding is a big issue; I come from an area where we had failure factories shut down,’’ said Corcoran, using his term for F-rated schools. “You see people bringing all those things to the table and figuring out what those important things are and we try to move forward.”
Scott has told reporters he isn’t ruling out declaring an opioid and heroin emergency, but he hasn’t taken action yet.
On nearly every major issue the House and Senate are far apart, if not outright opposed to the other chamber’s approach. Corcoran’s charter schools bill, for instance, would be paid for by cutting university budgets, flying in the face of another top Negron priority, spending more on higher education.
The House budget proposal is $81.2 billion, about $4 billion less than the Senate’s version. The gap is large but not insurmountable, legislative leaders say.
Reaching an agreement, however, could be difficult. The Senate wants to borrow money to help pay for Negron’s land-buying plan. The House is steadfastly opposed to that, and House leaders say the Lake Okeechobee plan is unnecessary anyway.
Corcoran is adamantly opposed to relying on rising home values to boost education funding, as Scott has urged. The lack of borrowing and Corcoran’s stance on property taxes leave little wiggle room for budget negotiators.
Even when both chambers look to address a mounting issue such as teacher shortages — a University of Florida study last year found nearly 28,000 teachers left public and charter schools from 2012 to 2015 — they appear to be squabbling over the details.
Corcoran wants to expand a program that pays teachers bonuses based on their SAT scores from $44 million to $200 million. The Senate has focused more on tinkering with the testing mandates that many teachers say eat up classroom time and impose undue burdens on students.
Underlying the differences are suspicions about motives and political ambitions, leading to friction and distrust in the GOP.
Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, has said he’s thinking about running for governor in 2018. Many lobbyists suspect Corcoran will enter that race as well. Latvala has taken Scott’s side in the Enterprise Florida flap, saying it’s vital to job creation.
So far, lawmakers have passed one substantive bill — a fix of the death penalty required by a court ruling.
The legislative session is scheduled to end May 5.