Special session closes with deals
Scott, lawmakers find compromises
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers slapped together a deal Friday to put more money into public schools, jobs programs, university construction projects and for repairs to the dike at Lake Okeechobee, rescuing a special session mired in gridlock a day earlier.
Lawmakers also approved a plan to carry out a November constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana before adjourning the three-day session.
The wide-ranging agreement reached in secret Friday had a new element. Lawmakers put $50 million toward the Herbert Hoover Dike, a priority for Scott that the Legislature rejected during the regular session. Scott says the repairs are vital to prevent runoff of polluted water from the lake into South Florida waterways.
Legislators also passed bills
restoring funding for public schools and pumping another $215 million into the $24 billion PreK-12 public schools budget, increasing the amount of per-student funding by $100 to $7,296.
Scott agreed to restore $60 million for 17 building construction and maintenance projects at universities that he had vetoed last week, including $1.7 million for the UCF downtown campus, a small reduction from the original $2 million.
The special session cost taxpayers about $60,000 per day, but legislative leaders said the conflict among Scott and leaders of the House and Senate — all Republicans — was inevitable but worth it.
“We all are strong, independent people who have our own ideas, so it’s not surprising that there’s a certain amount of ambiguity and uncertainty in getting things resolved,” said Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart. “But the bottom line is what the end result was, which was historic increases for our universities and for students to be able to attend our universities.”
On Thursday, Negron vehemently insisted he was not a party to the agreement reached last week between Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, to return to the Capitol and demanded that Senate priorities be addressed.
Hovering over the session was the fate of HB 7069, a top Corcoran priority that contains $419 million for teachers bonuses and seeks to entice charter schools to compete against chronically failing public schools. The bill includes several other provisions such as reducing the discretion school districts have to spend federal grant money and giving charter schools a greater share of construction funds that have generated vocal opposition from school district administrators around the state.
Democrats slammed the nature of the deal, even as many of them voted for the increase in school funding Friday, saying the bump up still short-changes public school students.
“What are the kids getting? They don’t have an ability to trade. They have no political capital to spend up here,” said Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, one of four Democrats to vote against the school funding bill.
The fight that spurred the need for a special session was a rolling battle between Corcoran and Scott over economic development agencies.
Corcoran crusaded for eliminating Visit Florida, a tourism marketing agency, and Enterprise Florida, the state’s main economic development agency that vets business incentive projects, deeming them “corporate welfare.”
The original budget passed by lawmakers contained just $25 million for Visit Florida and $16 million for Enterprise Florida.
Scott responded by bashing Corcoran and fellow Republican House members as “Tallahassee politicians” who “don’t care about jobs” in attack ads paid for by his political committee.
The compromise bill passed by lawmakers on Friday put Visit Florida funding at $76 million and requires contracts of more than $750,000 to be approved by a legislative panel. But it leaves in place a public records exemption that helped spur Corcoran’s push for transparency at the agency in the first place.
Earlier this year Corcoran sued the management company of Pitbull, a Miami rapper who entered into a secret contract with Visit Florida in 2015. Pitbull backed down, revealing a $1 million contract to promote the state as a tourist destination, spurring calls for reforms of the agency.
The bill also sets up an $85 million fund for Scott to use on infrastructure and job training projects as a replacement for Enterprise Florida funding, even though the state already has programs to pay for infrastructure and job training.
“What we have is an $85 million slush fund where we’re giving the governor a bucket of money ... and he gets to pick winners or losers,” said Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach.
The $50 million for the dike will come out of state reserves, but Scott has said President Donald Trump has assured him the federal government, which operates the dike, will pay Florida back.
Senate budget chief Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, noted that Florida still has $3.16 billion in reserves, $200 million more than the current fiscal year.
In the end, Scott, Corcoran and Negron each claimed victory, ignoring the weeks of acrimony.
Three months after Scott toured Florida to bash Republicans for voting against his agenda, he is ready to hit the road again.
“I’m excited to travel the state and brag about what got accomplished in the special session,” Scott said.
Corcoran told reporters, “We call ourselves the ‘Cardiac Kids.’ We get you guys all worked up and then we come to a nice, smooth landing.”
“I’m excited to travel the state and brag about what got accomplished in the special session.” Gov. Rick Scott