Legislators agree on key terms of budget

TALLAHASSEE — Lawmakers agreed to top-level budget numbers Friday, setting the stage for formal budget talks as top-priority issues for Gov. Ron DeSantis, like E-Verify requirements for businesses, got closer to passing the Legislature.

But delays in reaching that agreement mean lawmakers are not likely to end the 60-day legislative session by Mar. 13, the scheduled end date, and will need to extend the session for a few days. Formal budget talks will start Saturday.

Major differences remain on budget details, including raises for teachers, affordable housing funds and tourism marketing, but the broad outlines of a budget deal have been reached.

House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, said Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency that he had pushed to defund, would remain alive as part of the budget agreement.

“They really are an amazing marketing company, they have made us believe that they should exist so you’ve got to give them that,” Oliva said.

Senate leaders and DeSantis have pushed to save the agency, and Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said Thursday that fears over the coronavirus show the importance of Visit Florida to bring tourists to the state in the wake of global epidemic fears.

Yet Oliva said that the House hasn’t agreed to changes the Senate made Friday to the E-Verify bill, which would require government employers and contractors to use E-Verify, but allow private businesses to use E-Verify or an alternative system approved by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

People could file complaints with DEO if they believe they aren’t using the system or hiring illegal immigrants, and DEO would be able to conduct random audits of businesses, and revoke licenses for non-compliance. The Senate is poised to pass the bill Monday and send it to the House.

Meanwhile, a controversial university consolidation plan that would have shaken up higher education in Florida won’t be happening this year, Oliva said.

The plan called for Florida Polytechnic University and New College of Florida to be absorbed into the University of Florida system. The merger didn’t have the Senate’s support, Oliva said.

“That’s one of those ideas whose time is going to come,” Oliva said. “It is unfortunate that it is not today.”

Supporters said the merger would result in cost savings and efficiencies, but students and staff at the universities vehemently opposed the idea.

Although both chambers included $500 million for teacher raises, they differed on how to allot the funding. Under the House plan, school districts would be required to increase the salaries of veteran teachers along with newly hired teachers, while the Senate preferred to use 80 percent to hike the minimum pay to an average of $47,500, with the rest going to boost the pay of veteran teachers.

The Senate also included a pay raise for state workers in its plan that wasn’t included in the House version, but Oliva said the chambers are now “aligned” on both issues, but declined to provide further details.

Other discrepancies include affordable housing, with the Senate’s $387 million plan coming in about $240 million more than the House version.

Oliva’s top priority, expanding the scope of practice for nurses, something heavily opposed by the Florida Medical Association, a major doctors lobby, has yet to pass the Senate.

Galvano would also like to see a new gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe, which stopped making payments to the state under the previous compact over card games offered by pari-mutuels throughout the state they believed violated the monopoly they were supposed to have on banked card games under the compact.