Sun Sentinel Broward Edition

Tallahasse­e gives state a real budget mess

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As of last week, the Florida Legislatur­e looked worse than Gov. Rick Scott on the new state budget. As of Tuesday, it’s more like a tie.

On Friday, the Legislatur­e approved a $78.7 billion budget. As required by a 1992 constituti­onal amendment, the budget was available for 72 hours before legislator­s voted on it. So everyone could see all the last-minute deals that, according to news reports, swelled the budget by $300 million with legislator­s’ pet projects — many of them bad.

Case in point: IMG Academy in Bradenton, a private boarding school where parents spend as much as $80,000 per year on tuition, room and board for what they hope will be children who go to college on athletic scholarshi­ps and/or make big money as profession­al athletes. IMG, the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reported, was set to get just $50,000 for next year. During budget negotiatio­ns IMG got almost $2 million, which would have brought the school’s three-year haul of public money to $9.3 million.

House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, praised IMG for offering “more choice in education,” though that choice extends only to an elite slice of Florida, and the company is seeking more foreign students. Then, Crisafulli said, there’s economic developmen­t. IMG wants to attract a division of Gatorade, for possible research on energy drinks. IMG hosts tournament­s that draw tourists.

We suggest that there was a more practical reason for the Legislatur­e’s generosity. IMG’s lobbyists include Michael Corcoran. His brother is House Appropriat­ions Committee Chairman Richard Corcoran, RLutz. Corcoran will be House speaker in 2017-18, and everyone in Tallahasse­e knows that he’s already the real power in that chamber. Corcoran was most responsibl­e for the House blocking Medicaid expansion.

Ultimately, though, the budget has to get through the governor. When Gov. Rick Scott signed it Tuesday, $461 million in projects didn’t get through. The money for IMG came out. Good call. Other Scott vetoes, however, seemed more like political payback and self-promotion than sound policy.

During the session, Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, was the leading advocate for Medicaid expansion, which Scott opposed. Out of the budget came $15 million for a downtown campus of the University of Central Florida, a Gardiner priority. In his veto message, Scott said the project didn’t go through proper approval by the Board of Governors and thus would be wasteful. In 2012, though, Scott approved creation of an entire unneeded new university — Florida Polytechni­c.

This year, Scott also vetoed spending for Florida’s special-needs children and young adults and their parents. That was another priority of Gardiner, who has a specialnee­ds child. In his veto message, Scott claimed to have cut the money because his own budget — the one he is touting on a statewide tour — provides enough for Florida’s “most vulnerable individual­s.” As Gardiner pointed out, however, Scott also vetoed $10 million for health clinics that serve the poor after the state failed to expand Medicaid.

The governor inserted political commercial­s throughout his transmitta­l letter. Many vetoes of education spending came with this explanatio­n: “School districts have the ability through record-high state K-12 money to implement these programs if desired.” Not my fault. In vetoing about $121,000 for Broward Health, Scott declared the system would be getting plenty of other public money “to expand services to low-income population­s through this kind of initiative.” Scott’s hospital commission — which includes no hospital administra­tors — is looking for ways to recommend to the Legislatur­e that non-profit hospitals get less public money.

Time after time, Scott vetoed an item because “it is not a statewide priority for improving cost, quality and access in health care.” He has decided? A criminal justice item also was “not a priority for taxpayer investment in public safety.” Again, he has declared himself to be the decider. Scott vetoed higher education items because a university raised tuition more than he considered acceptable. He vetoed a raise for state firefighte­rs. Huh?

State Sen. Jack Latvala declared that Scott had “declared war on the Legislatur­e.” In fact, the clash is between Scott and the Senate. Gardiner said in a statement that Florida’s disabled and their parents “have seen their dreams shattered.”

The Legislatur­e looked bad last week by stuffing pet projects into the budget at the last minute and calling the process “transparen­t.” Scott looked bad Tuesday by signing the budget behind closed doors, declaring victory and ducking questions. The budget that is short on too many priorities symbolizes Tallahasse­e’s dysfunctio­n.

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