Lawmakers OK budget, fail to pass medical pot
TALLAHASSEE – After days of secret negotiations, lawmakers produced a final budget on Friday, allowing them to return and finish the legislative session on Monday, three days later than scheduled.
Legislators will be back in overtime because of a state law requiring that the budget must be published 72 hours before they can vote on it.
The $82.4 billion budget is a less than a 1 percent increase on the current year. It includes $20.4 billion for PreK-12 schools, or $7,221 per student, about a $25 increase on the current year, the smallest jump since Florida began to climb out of the recession.
Other bills tied to the budget agreement between House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, were agreed to late Friday.
Negron’s priorities of expanding Bright Futures Scholarships to pay for summer credit hours and up to 100 percent of tuition and giving $70.5 million to universities to hire research faculty are included. Corcoran’s push to use $200 million to entice charter schools to compete with chronically failing public schools and another $200 million to pay teachers bonuses based on SAT scores made the cut as well.
State colleges, however, endured a $30.2 million cut.
“The impact of this cut will be long term, and Florida will drop within the nation in our ability to serve and produce bright, academically prepared, workforce-ready professionals,” said Michael Brawer, CEO UCF clinic treating Pulse survivors will get $2.5M
of the Association of Florida Colleges.
Central Florida projects that made the budget include $2.5 million for a clinic at UCF treating soldiers, first responders and survivors of the Pulse nightclub massacre suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Lake Apopka restoration is funded at $2 million, and the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts will get $3.9 million.
Republicans angered by Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala’s decision not to seek the death penalty cut her budget by $1.3 million. But Ayala herself, along with the 19 other state attorneys in the state, will receive a $15,400 raise, boosting her salary to $169,554.
A major bill that failed to pass late Friday night would have set up regulations for medical marijuana to carry out an amendment approved by 71 percent of voters in November. The House and Senate couldn’t agree on how many dispensaries should be allowed and whether the drug should be taxed. The Florida Department of Health will now have to step in to write the rules.
“The Florida Legislature chose political gamesmanship over the will of 71 percent of voters,” said Ben Pollara, executive director of the group Florida for Care, who also served as campaign manager for the political committee that backed the amendment. “The will of the people was thwarted again today by Tallahassee politicians, but they can’t deny us forever. Florida for Care will continue fighting to implement the Constitution and bring a compassionate medical marijuana law to this state’s patients.”
The broad contours of the spending plan were reached last week, but details only trickled out in the past few days, as top House and Senate negotiators sealed deals behind closed doors.
A plan to use $1.6 billion to build a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee to store polluted water and clean up South Florida waterways central to Negron’s agenda has already passed. Corcoran’s push for a constitutional amendment to expand the homestead exemption by $25,000 and save homeowners an average of $275 in property taxes annually is headed to the 2018 ballot.
“When you look at the overall session there were numerous transformational issues that this Legislature took on that we were able to get done,” Negron said.
Spurred by Visit Florida’s $1 million contract with Miami rapper Pitbull, Corcoran led the push for more transparency at the agency, but a records exemption that allowed the contract to remain secret will remain on the books until at least 2018.
Other strict measures for the state’s tourism promotion agency, however, such as requiring legislative approval for contracts of more than $750,000, capping employee pay at $134,000 and requiring contracts of more than $34,000 to be posted online are also part of the budget deal.
Corcoran also demanded Visit Florida be cut by $51 million, to $25 million – a direct poke in the eye of Gov. Rick Scott, who put $100 million for the agency at the top of his agenda.
Enterprise Florida, the state main economic development agency and a target of Corcoran’s crusade against what he called “corporate welfare,” saw its funds for business incentives wiped out. Scott had asked for $85 million.
Scott bashed House Republicans all session for opposing him on Visit Florida, and wrapped up a threeday tour of the state in Panama City on Friday, where he implored supporters to plead lawmakers to adopt his agenda.
The consistent criticism by Scott has raised the prospect that he could veto the entire budget, something that hasn’t been done since 1992.
On Friday, lawmakers sent to the governor a bill that increases the amount paid to private schools that enroll students in the state’s tax credit scholarship program. The program currently serves more than 98,000 students and is primarily used by children from low-income families. The legislation expands eligibility for a program that helps children with disabilities as well.
A change to the stand your ground law was approved requiring that prosecutors show with “clear and convincing evidence” during pretrial hearings that a defendant claiming a stand your ground defense is invalid. Previously, the burden of proof fell on the defendant.
Another measure that just squeaked by was a measure imposing mandatory minimum sentences on those trafficking in fentanyl, a heroin-like pain medication that has led to thousands of overdoses around the state in recent years.
The bill passed the Senate on a 31-7 vote, but not before the chamber narrowly backed down from a provision that would have given judges greater discretion in issuing sentences for the offense.
Some senators spoke against mandatory minimums as an overly harsh sentencing scheme that ignores individual circumstances.
“What we are discussing here is, do you want judges to have discretion when they sentence people or do you not?” said Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.
But the Senate voted 20-18 to remove the provision allowing judicial discretion. The epidemic of opioid overdoses, which Scott declared a public health emergency earlier this week, means a stronger stand must be taken, supporters argued.
“We can’t go home without dealing with this,” said Sen. Dennis Baxley, ROcala. “People who are selling this are tantamount to contributing to murders. It has to be stopped.”