Court upholds Scott veto of raise for firefighters

TALLAHASSEE — A divided appeals court Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a 2015 decision by Gov. Rick Scott to veto $2,000 pay raises that lawmakers had included in the budget for state firefighters.

Rejecting arguments that the veto violated collective-bargaining rights, the majority of a threemember panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal said Scott acted within his authority to veto spending items in the state budget. It said lawmakers could have overridden the veto but did not.

“The Florida Constitution clearly articulates the governor’s authority to veto the GAA (the General Appropriations Act, a formal name for the budget), or specific appropriations therein,” said the sevenpage majority opinion, written by Judge Timothy Osterhaus, joined by Judge Harvey Jay.

But Judge Brad Thomas dissented, pointing to a conflict between the governor’s veto authority and constitutional collectivebargaining rights. The Legislature included the $2,000 raises in budget fine print, known as “proviso” language, to resolve a bargaining impasse with the firefighters’ representatives.

Scott’s decision to veto the $1.57 million for state firefighters, including employees who fight forest fires, was controversial. At the time, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam criticized Scott and pointed to raises that the governor approved for employees of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

“They’re demonstrably underpaid relative to peers,” Putnam said at the time. “And I’m even more disappointed that it was not applied consistently. The helpful people who take your driver’s license photo were allowed to receive a pay raise, and our forest firefighters who put their lives on the line were not.”

But Scott said the pay raises for Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles employees were backed up by the needs of the agency.