Budget Talks Continue Behind Closed Doors

By Brandon Larrabee
The News Service of Florida

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, May 1, 2017......... Negotiations over a roughly $83 billion budget continued behind the scenes Monday, as other parts of the complicated maneuvering to successfully end the 2017 legislative session began to lock into place.

By early Monday evening, there had been no public meetings on the budget negotiations, now being led by the top Republicans in the House and the Senate, despite assurances than any final deal would be subject to an open meeting.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, took over the talks Sunday afternoon, following negotiations between the House and Senate budget chiefs on a spending plan for the year that begins July 1.

As of early Monday evening, more than 24 hours had passed since the last public meeting held by House Appropriations Chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, and Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater.

Because of a constitutionally required 72-hour "cooling off" period, any budget deal would need to be reached Tuesday if lawmakers hope to end the session as scheduled on Friday.

Speaking with reporters after a Senate floor session Monday, Negron continued to express confidence that deal could be reached.

"I think that if we work diligently through the rest of the afternoon and evening, I'm still optimistic that we can get it done," Negron said. "I think it's more important to get it done right than to get it done quickly."

Negron said lawmakers had made progress on an area of the budget focused on the environment and agriculture, where essentially no progress was made in earlier negotiations.

He also pledged a public meeting between the House and the Senate to exchange offers "when everything's wrapped up."

Those hoping to influence the final shape of the budget made one last push to lobby lawmakers.

Gov. Rick Scott met with several legislators Monday, as the current contours of the deal imperiled his top priorities for the session. Scott's tax-cut package has been severely whittled down, he is likely to get none of the economic development incentives he requested, and lawmakers have allocated far less for tourism marketing than Scott wanted.

In addition to Latvala and Trujillo, the governor met with two likely future Senate presidents --- Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby --- as well as Rep. Jose Oliva, a Miami Lakes Republican in line to become House speaker late next year. He was also slated to talk with Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, a Miami Republican leading the House's negotiations on gambling issues.

In an action alert to members, League of Women Voters of Florida President Pamela Goodman urged members to push for funding for Florida Forever, a land-conservation program.
"Today is the last opportunity during the 2017 legislative session to fight for Florida Forever," she wrote. "Senate President Negron, Senator Latvala, House Speaker Richard Corcoran, and Representative Carlos Trujillo need to hear that defunding Florida Forever hurts our state and their constituents."

Other legislation understood to be closely tied to the fate of the budget negotiations continued to move Monday. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would increase pay for state employees --- a Senate priority --- while making changes to retirement and health-insurance benefits --- a House demand.

But senators stressed that many of the pension and insurance changes were voluntary, and promoted the value of the first raise for state employees since 2013.

"This is not a compromised pay raise. ... This is not something that will be offset by an increase in health premiums. That's what we call an uncompromised pay raise," said Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee.

The Senate also voted to approve a proposed increase in the homestead property-tax exemption, something important to Corcoran. The measure would need voter approval in November 2018 to add the increased exemption to the state Constitution.

The House did not meet Monday.

In addition to the budget itself, several budget-related bills have to be negotiated. Those measures will include details of how to spend $414 million in funds set aside to expand eligibility for a teacher bonus program and to encourage charter schools to open up in areas where traditional public schools have struggled.

But those bills are only subject to a 24-hour "cooling off" period, meaning they can be finished later in the week.

Negron also suggested Monday that the fate of negotiations on a gambling package could be related to the budget, saying he would be less interested in reaching a deal this session if lawmakers could not tap about $200 million in funds set aside by the Seminole Tribe that could be freed up if a bill is passed.

There were a variety of areas that money might go if lawmakers could access it, Negron said.

"I think the budget that we have is a strong budget, but I think it could be even better if we had a couple hundred million dollars ... to consider expanding the tax package," he said. "(The funds) could possibly be used for other purposes where we have some areas of the budget that members would like to address. We could even put some of it into increasing our reserves."

But the House-Senate committee charged with working out a gambling deal has not met publicly since last week.