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Jan 5, 2009 9:15 pm US/Eastern
Fla. Legislature Holds Special 2009 Budget Session
TALLAHASSEE (AP) ―
The budget ax is swinging in Tallahassee this week and public schools are going to feel the sharp impact—again.
Florida legislators got to work Monday, cutting more than $2 billion from the current state budget during a two-week emergency session brought on by the economic crisis. Lawmakers will have to make deeper spending cuts than anticipated.
This isn't Washington, where enormous budget deficits are a way of life for congressional lawmakers. The Florida constitution demands a balanced budget. Even so, educators and parents are asking why their children can't be shielded from the pain.
On Monday Miami-Dade school superintendent Alberto Carvalho told
CBS4's Michael Williams, "Florida ranks 47th in the nation in per pupil funding. To make additional cuts is just unthinkable. We are destroying public education."
Carvalho is headed to Tallahassee to make his case before state budget committees, but no one is betting on his success. Carvalho warns, "Obviously the impact is on educational programs at the very least, from paraprofessionals to clerical to actual teachers."
Senate President Jeff Atwater says December tax collections fell $100 million below forecast, meaning the Legislature will have a bigger hole to fill in the budget. Atwater says if the December trend continues through June when the budget year ends, Florida could be another $600 million to $700 million in the hole.
Miami Senator Dan Gelber said, "A lot of this is from a global and a national recession but a good amount of it is also bad decisions we've made over the last decade. We've allowed a very dysfunctional tax system to foment and we are now seeing fault lines of that system revealed and the harms that flow from them."
Tax increases are off the table for the special session. In a voice vote, the House killed any consideration of Democratic proposals to raise Florida's cigarette tax, now one of the lowest in the nation, and close loopholes in the documentary stamp tax levied on real estate transactions.
During the special session, the Republican-controlled Legislature is looking at a combination of options including spending cuts, reserves, and higher court fees and fines to offset the loss of revenue dollars.
"It's gonna be difficult," said Key West Representative Ron Saunders. "I think we're gonna have a lot of cuts in education which our people are finding objectionable. We're taking some money out of trust funds which we think may be irresponsible because we're already at a roughly low level. I think we have to certainly look at sales tax exemptions, Seminole gaming compact and other areas where we can raise some revenues without hurting the public."
Miami-Dade schools may have to deal with another $30 million dollar slice out of the budget, at minimum. Broward public schools may have to absorb a $34 million dollar budget cut. That is bad enough, but keep in mind that both districts have already slashed hundreds of millions of dollars from their budgets because of the economic downturn.
Gelber says, "I think it is going to be very harmful and there is going to be no upside. We will cut core services in health care and the public classrooms."
Many Democrats argue, and educators agree, that lawmakers need to take on sacred cows by closing tax exemptions for many businesses and services. They argue the budget crisis demands that kind of bold initiative, but the Republican led Florida legislature is not likely to make any substantive changes to tax policy. Parents are left to wonder when education might no longer be worthy of the name.
One of those parents, Adhys Obeso, summed up her worry this way. She said, "My request to lawmakers is look where you can cut intelligently and try to impact our children as little as possible." Parents, children, and educators are about to find out if anyone is listening.
Lawmakers will face even more financial woe when they tackle next year's budget during the regular session beginning in March.
Rising costs and more revenue shortfalls are expected to create a budget gap of about $4 billion next year that could result in fewer health benefits for the poor and more overcrowding in the state prison system. There's also increasing demand for Medicaid, unemployment benefits and food stamps, which nearly one in 10 Floridians receive.
"There's going to be a lot of people that are not going to be happy with government in general," predicted Miami Representative Julio Robaina, "but we have a job to do to make sure that we take care of the problem that we currently have. We have to be able to operate government so we have to look at this very carefully. It will not be an easy task, it's probably the hardest thing that we've had to do in probably several decades but it's something that we must do."
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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