Gov. DeSantis’ ‘bolder’ state budget is better, but not nearly bold enough
Gov. Ron DeSantis has sent the legislature a budget for next year that he calls “bolder, brighter and better” for Floridians. On closer review, he should have added another B — for business as usual.
The second spending plan of the DeSantis era is $91.4 billion. That’s about $400 million more than this year’s budget, and it’s bolder in some areas, but it’s still business as usual in too many places. For a state with as many dire needs as Florida, this budget is simply too little, too late.
There is some positive news. DeSantis’ No. 1 priority is raising the starting pay of teachers to $47,500 a year. His budget includes $603 million for a long-overdue improvement that he says will help 101,000 teachers, and lift up Florida from the depths of low teacher pay among the 50 states. But he has still not explained how to solve the unfairness that will occur when some starting teachers earn the same as their far more experienced counterparts.
The governor’s immediate problem here is one of his own making: The pay raise plan faces an uphill climb in the Legislature because he has obviously failed to sell legislative leaders on the idea, especially House Speaker José Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, who reminded DeSantis this week that the details are “obscure.” The speaker is right. DeSantis needs to show transparency on this key issue.
DeSantis also proposes to spend $300 million more for bonuses for teachers and principals by replacing the existing bonus program, Best & Brightest, which is unworkable and unpopular. One-time bonuses are bogus. We say move that money into the pay raise pot to permanently lift up every teacher’s take-home pay.
To his credit, DeSantis also addresses the scandalous neglect in the nation’s third-largest prison system. Previous governors and lawmakers have allowed prisons to become dangerously understaffed because of mass vacancies caused by rampant turnover, a direct consequence of poor pay and squalid working conditions that have worsened over time.
To stem turnover, DeSantis is proposing to add 380 more full-time positions and spend $60 million to raise salaries of correctional officers, who will get $1,500 to $2,500 more in their paychecks annually, depending on experience.
It’s also good to see DeSantis push for more election security and to follow through on statewide outreach to register more adults to vote, one of the requirements of the state’s new membership in an anti-fraud effort known as ERIC, or Electronic
Registration Information Center. There’s $6.6 million for those initiatives from state and federal funds.
On the environment, DeSantis would spend $625 million more for Everglades restoration and water quality, including springs protection and efforts to reduce the harmful effects of algal blooms and red tide. But his proposal to spend $100 million to preserve land under the Florida Forever program is not enough, and neither is the $5.5 million he’s offering for a coastline resilience program to help brace for the changes resulting from sea-level rise.
This is literally treading water. The threat is here and now, and it needs a much stronger financial commitment from the state.
DeSantis’ budget is weak in numerous other respects. The budget has no acrossthe-board raise for rank-and-file state workers, who keep losing purchasing power as their wages fall behind the rising cost of living. This is especially true in South Florida, with its higher costs for housing and other expenses. State workers in Florida are among the poorest paid in the country.
On health care, DeSantis is following in the footsteps of his predecessors and willfully ignoring the millions of Florida residents who have no health insurance. To date, 37 states have implemented expansion of the Medicaid program to boost coverage, but Florida and Texas are the largest states that have refused to do so.
DeSantis’ budget fails to address chronic backlogs in applications for clemency, including the right to vote, by more than 10,000 convicted felons who have left prison, rebuilt their lives and yearn to become full-fledged citizens. The 2020-21 budget has no increase from the current level of 132 full-time positions at the Florida Commission on Offender Review. The governor has touted clemency as the best option for drug offenders serving time for sentences that have since been repealed in state law. Reducing that clemency backlog costs money.
All in all, DeSantis’ budget is bolder than before. But that’s not saying much, and it’s not nearly bold enough. We can do much better.