Budget accord not yet in open

Critical committee meetings to iron out details still await.

TALLAHASSEE — House and Senate leaders continued negotiating the state budge t behi nd c l os e d doors Wednesday, more than 24 hours after saying they had an early agreement on the overall size of the spending plan.

Generally, a deal on the broad contours of the budget — known as “allocations” — would lead in short order to meetings by joint House-Senate committees to hammer out details of state spending for the year that begins July 1.

But for a second day, optimism from legislative leaders that those conference meetings could begin produced no actual public negotiating sessions.

“I think that we’ve reached an agreement on the substance of the budget, and I think we also have reached agreement on a way that we can get to conference,” Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said Wednesday morning.

But lawmakers pushed back against the idea that a deal that many believed had been sealed Tuesday had fallen apart.

“When we closed business yesterday, the major issues had been agreed on; at this point, there is some t weaking going on what I call second- and third-tier issues,” said Sen. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican set to take Negron’s place late next year.

The annual legislative session is scheduled to end May 5. But lawmakers face a Tuesday deadline to complete a full budget agreement or go into overtime, either through a special session or an extension of the regular session. That is because of a constitutionally required 72-hour “cooling off ” period before a budget vote.

Negron confirmed some of the broad strokes of the agreement Wednesday morning. The Senate would get wins on higher-education funding and policy, as well as Negron’s plan to build a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.

In return, House le aders would largely get their way on public education. Local education property tax bills would not rise with property values; as a result, the increase in money for schools distributed through the state’s main funding formula would rise by a relatively modest amount per student.

However, the House would also get $200 million for t e a c h e r b o nu s e s t i e d t o teachers’ performances on certain tests, and $200 million for its proposed “schools of hope” program, meant to encourage qualified charter schools to set up near academically troubled traditional schools.

T h o s e w o u l d b e o u t - side the Florida Education Finance Program, or FEFP, a formula usually used to calculate per-student increases in school spending.

“It would be a mistake to only count in the education budget what comes directly through the FEFP,” Negron said. “I think there are other educational opportunities that we’ll give to our constituents, and I think that improves the overall quality of our system.”

The Florida Educ ation Association, the state’s main teachers union, lambasted the “schools of hope” legislation and similar ideas that have circulated in the Senate.

Negron’s comments raised the prospect that he and Ho u s e S p e a ke r R i c h a r d Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, were delving deeper into the budget than leaders have done while discussing allocations in recent years.