TALLAHASSEE — Traffic fines are going up and nearly 1,500 open state jobs could disappear now that legislators Friday approved rival plans to plug a $2.4 billion budget hole by slashing spending and raiding special accounts.
The plans from the House and Senate have far more similarities than differences. The House proposal to plug the deficit, however, would leave the state with a surplus of more than $400 million.
The Senate plan cuts about $2.3 billion — about $100 million shy of what’s needed. The reason: The Senate proposal makes far smaller cuts to social services and sweeps less from special accounts called trust funds.
Senate President Jeff Atwater said the numbers will change as the two chambers confer over the weekend. They’ll likely agree next week on a final budget plan that has enough of a cushion to account for plummeting tax collections, which could put next year’s budget about $4 billion in the red.
“It could be that severe by the time we begin looking at a July 1 start date for a new budget,” Atwater said.
The two chambers cut education, environmental programs, transportation projects and Medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies and others who help the disabled.
One of the few beneficiaries during this special lawmaking session: mid-sized businesses who could take advantage of a loan program established with $10 million in seed money. Many Republicans said they wished they could spend more for the loan program. Senate Democratic leader Al Lawson of Tallahassee called it “corporate welfare.” The budget proposals passed the chambers on party line votes.
To spare the court system deep cuts, lawmakers are increasing a passel of traffic fines to raise about $15 million this year and $63 million next.
Republican leaders rebuffed Democrats’ call to debate raising cigarette taxes or close what they call “loopholes’’ in sales- and real-estate taxes. Republicans say they’ll debate those revenue sources during the regular lawmaking session in March.
There are two ways to calculate the budget cuts: Total spending and base-budget spending. Total spending includes all sources of money for the state — mainly federal grant money — while base-budget spending is limited to general revenue from the state’s major taxes that nearly everyone pays.
In total spending, the House and Senate respectively cut $1.3 billion and $1.2 billion, which would lower the budget to about $65 billion — lower than the 2006 budget.
Lawmakers, however, are cutting only about $1 billion in general revenue spending. Those cuts are applied to the $2.4 billion deficit, which is in the general revenue portion of the budget. The remainder of the money comes from raiding savings accounts and trust funds.
Lawmakers are eliminating up to 1,450 open jobs. About seven people could lose their jobs at the Parole Commission as could another six Florida Department of Law Enforcement employees. Next budget year, many more state workers could get pink slips.
Plant City Republican Rep. Rich Glorioso, chairman of the House transportation budget committee, said lawmakers are trying to avoid firings at all costs.
“That’s the last thing we need to do in this economy,” he said. “Lay more people off.”
Marc Caputo can be reached at mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
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