Lawmakers musn’t defer to Scott in 3-day session
Well, at least the schoolkids look to get a little more money.
That’s about the only bright spot to be gleaned from the rubber-stamp of a legislative special session that’s slated to begin today and end Friday.
Although the task is unfinished, Florida’s lawmakers aren’t scheduled to talk about medical marijuana. They aren’t rethinking their huge giveaways to the charter school industry, though they’re still leaving per-pupil public school funding among the nation’s lowest. And they still cut $30 million from the nation’s top-ranked community college system.
This quick confab in Tallahassee is an insult to voters, and to good government. It was announced abruptly last Friday after Gov. Rick Scott, Senate President Joe Negron and House Speaker Richard Corcoran apparently agreed in secret how to resolve major unfinished issues from the regular session — which itself had ended with a flurry of ill-considered legislation mostly decided without witness testimony or open debate.
As announced by Corcoran, the deal setting up the special session — made with no input from Democrats — restores Visit Florida to last year’s funding level of $76 million, as if Corcoran’s repeated ranting about that agency’s wastefulness never happened.
Instead of beefing up Enterprise Florida, which Scott wanted to expand and Corcoran wanted to eliminate, they’ll spend $85 million on a new economic-incentive agency called the Florida Job
Growth Grant Fund. Which sounds a lot like same wine, different bottle.
And to put a better face on a budget that gave public schools a measly 1.2 percent overall increase, the lowest hike in years, Scott agreed to add $215 million to the K-12 budget. Now, instead of an embarrassingly low average increase of $24 per student, legislators will weigh a bill to boost per-pupil spending by $100.
The governor found the money, in large part, by vetoing $410 million in local projects, including $10.7 million worth in Palm Beach County.
Which means goodbye to $2 million for discovering new drugs and converting basic research into medical cures at The Scripps Research Institute. Scratch $1.1 million in scientific fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Neuroscience, and $1 million from the Florida Atlantic University Honors Program. So long (once again) to basic improvements for the long-delayed Lake Worth Park of Commerce.
Meanwhile, nothing essential has been changed in the odious HB 7069, which wants to give $140 million to for-profit companies to set up charter schools near struggling traditional public schools. This slapped-together measure — which rightly ought to be vetoed — would also force public school districts to give charter schools a share of property tax money earmarked for building construction and maintenance. In Palm Beach County, school officials say the hit could exceed $230 million over 10 years.
The House Democratic leader, Janet Cruz, is altogether correct in calling this special session “a farce being inflicted upon the people of Florida.”
“To pretend this newest backroom deal will help public education in our state is laughable,” the Tampa Democrat said.
More outrageous, this special session — as yet — is not scheduled to address a long-overdue regulatory framework for medical marijuana, a further insult to the 71 percent of Floridians who voted in November to legalize cannabis for people with serious medical conditions.
The Legislature failed miserably in the regular session to set ground rules for what’s expected to be one of the nation’s largest medical marijuana markets. The lawmakers left the matter to slow-moving bureaucrats at the state Department of Health — a breathtaking abdication of responsibility.
Corcoran said last Friday that the House wants to take up the question of medical marijuana. Negron signaled a willingness for that, saying Tuesday he has made no agreements as to the “outcomes” of the special session, nor on limiting the “subject matter.”
There’s still a chance, in other words, for lawmakers to do right by Floridians. They can pass legislation that’s less supine to corporations and for-profit charter school companies, and more responsive to public schools and the statewide majority that voted for Amendment 2. They can even take more than three days to do it.
This quick confab in Tallahassee is an insult to voters, and to good government.