Given Ian’s intensity, ‘build back better’ must be more than a cliché
Floridians who breathed a sigh of relief because they thought they’d avoided the impact of Hurricane Ian’ should think again. As Florida’s stormtossed history teaches us, a major hurricane’s impact can extend far beyond the region it strikes first.
Nowhere will the indirect impact be felt more than in Tallahassee.
There’s little doubt that Florida’s shaky propertyinsurance marketplace — already damaged by the predations of personal injury lawyers — will suffer significant additional damage because of this storm, even if no other storms arrive before — or even after — the official Nov. 30 conclusion of hurricane season.
As per the state Constitution, the Legislature is scheduled to convene for its post-election organizational session on Nov. 22. That’s too soon. However, the next regular session won’t begin until March 6, 2023. That’s too late.
Given the circumstances, Gov. DeSantis would be well advised to call a special session for early January, which is when the Legislature convenes anyway in election years.
By then, lawmakers ought to have much better data with which to evaluate the extent of the damage in the storm-ravaged areas and to gauge the impact on the state’s revenue going forward.
After Hurricane Andrew 30 years ago, the state government learned that, after such a costly event, there is typically a temporary spike in state’s salestax receipts because of all the federal aid and property insurance money flowing in to rebuild destroyed structures and replace damaged vehicles, appliances and other property.
This revenue surge will come atop state revenues already exceeding the estimates on which the 2022-23 state budget was based, but the extra money won’t be recurring for years on end, while many of the expenses will continue for years.
While DeSantis, the Cabinet, and legislative leaders have some limited authority to redirect funds to address emergencies caused by natural disasters and/or fiscal constraints during recessions, only the Legislature can make the most important decisions about appropriating money.
Of special concern to lawmakers will be the funding for the school districts in the six counties that suffered the worst storm damage. Most of the local share of each school district’s funding is derived from property taxes, and the tax rolls in those areas will take time to recover, if they ever do, given that some of the most heavily taxed properties were on the water before they, literally, were in the water.
Losing lots of students is also a concern, because the state’s revenue allocations for each school district are primarily based on their enrollment.
However, a commensurate reduction in the school districts’ expenses — achieved by, say, summarily laying off faculty and staff — would be heartless, so lawmakers will need to find a work-around for the usual enrollment-based funding formula.
Those hard-hit districts will also need extra funds to help them rebuild damaged schools and, once the area’s internet service is fully restored, to cover the cost of reverting temporarily to the kind of online instruction used during the pandemic.
As noted in the axiom that President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously repeated, “Every crisis is an opportunity.”
Granted, for the Democrats in recent years, many of the opportunities to fix a crisis were created by the policies of their own party’s progressive faction in a cause-and-effect sequence as well disguised and underreported as that of an arsonist who sets fires, then shows up to act as a hero at the scene of the blaze.
Even so, when it comes to making sensible state and local decisions about whether to let property owners rebuild in high-risk, low-lying areas susceptible to storm surge now and sea-level rise eventually, the state’s Republican leaders ought to borrow one of the Democrats’ favorite phrases: Build Back Better.
What would building back better entail? Currently, much of Florida’s coastline is paralleled by a highway, with the beach side in many areas lined by hotels, condos, and the homes of the privileged few — and mostly off limits to wouldbe beachgoers.
It would entail acquiring the private property on that side of these roads and opening public beaches with ample parking. For beach-loving Floridians, visitors and, incidentally, for property insurers, that arrangement would be a welcome example of building back better.
Robert F. Sanchez, of Tallahassee, writes for the Herald’s digital conservative opinion newsletter, Right to the Point. It’s weekly, and it’s free. To subscribe, go to miamiherald.com/ righttothepoint.