By John Haughey
Watchdog.org
May 3, 2019 12:00 p.m.
There will be a Day 61 of Florida’s 2019 legislative session, but the one-day extension comes with an implied consensus that an $89.9 billion fiscal year 2020 state budget will be adopted quickly Saturday.
House and Senate budget conference negotiators announced a cascade of accords late Tuesday night in introducing a joint spending plan for adoption on both chambers’ floors.
Lawmakers received copies of the proposed budget Wednesday afternoon. Because state law requires a 72-hour “cooling off” period before voting on a budget, the earliest they can do so is Saturday at 1:30 p.m. – which is exactly when both chambers plan to convene on Day 61 of Florida’s 2019 legislative session.
“We’re probably going to spill into Saturday on the budget,” House Speaker Jose Oliva said Wednesday. “The final details are always very difficult, and the staff works diligently, but there’s just so many details to cover.”
The details, of course, will constitute much of the discourse over the last three days of the session – details that remained, in some cases, somewhat murky Wednesday evening.
What emerged through Wednesday were broader aspects of consensus, most notably in education and health care, in a proposed budget that will total $89.9 billion – exactly what the House initially proposed, $400,000 less than the Senate’s plan, $1.4 billion below Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request and $200,000 more than this year’s budget.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Rob Bradley and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Travis Cummings – Fleming Island Republicans spearheading budget talks – announced broad spending agreements on higher-education building projects, water and sewer installation programs, DeSantis’ environmental initiatives, health care spending, a toll-turnpike building plan, Visit Florida and, most notably, a dramatic increase in preK-12 public school funding.
The biggest potential roadblock cleared during conference budget talks was in education spending, where negotiators agreed to increase funding for the Florida Education Finance Program [FEFP] by 3.7 percent, or more than $782 million.
The Senate’s initial $22.2 billion education plan increased FEFP – which is what school districts receive from the state in per-student funding – by 4.71 percent, or $1.1 billion, that would translate into a one-year hike of about $350 per student.
The House countered with a $21.6 billion education budget proposal that increased FEFP spending by 2.75 percent, or $579.3 million, next year, or about $167 more for each student.