TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Frantic Final Day Sees A Flurry Of Decisions

ADVERTISEMENT

By CATHERINE DOLINSKI, NICOLA M. WHITE, RUSSELL RAY and JEROME R. STOCKFISCH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 3, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Low-cost health insurance options were expanded, and thousands of autistic children received coverage of costly therapies. A school voucher program for poor kids grew by $30 million, but a controversial plan to build commuter rail in Central Florida ran out of steam.

Those were among the major outcomes of round-the-clock negotiations between the House and Senate on the final day of the legislative session, on which lawmakers cast their final vote on a $66.2 billion state budget for the coming fiscal year - about $4 billion less than this year, the result of tumbling state revenue.

It was a dramatic, emotional push over autism that dominated both the House and Senate in the final minutes of Friday's session and left term-limited House Speaker Marco Rubio pleading with lawmakers who will return in 2009 to "pledge to each other today that you will not allow this issue to end."

The chambers were unable to agree on a Senate bill that would mandate that large insurance plans cover intense, interventional therapies for autistic children. The House pushed a far more expansive plan that, starting in 2009, would require both private and government-sponsored insurance plans to cover other developmentally disabled children as well.

The Senate rejected the House plan as unstudied and carrying enormous yet unspecified costs, and adjourned Friday evening after refusing to concede. In the end, after declaring days before that he would accept nothing short of "comprehensive reform," Rubio and his chamber adopted the much leaner compromise sent by the Senate that encourages insurers to cover developmental disabilities beyond autism but does not mandate it.

"Let it be the parting legacy of this House that we started the process," Rubio said, his voice eventually faltering.
Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, sponsor of the Senate version who made it his top priority in this, his final session, reiterated that he shared the House's instincts, even if he disagreed with its bill. "It tears my heart to see children with Down syndrome and other disabilities not get the benefits they need," he said. "I'd love to see more stuff done."

Budget Battles Over

After dominating much of the session, the austere 2008-09 state budget passed the Senate on Friday along party lines, as it had in the House the day before.

The budget fully funds the Florida Forever land-purchase conservation program, provides $50 million for Everglades restoration and gives Highway Patrol officers a 5 percent raise. It also provides more than $13 million to expand the state's health insurance program for poor children.

Senate President Ken Pruitt spoke proudly about the budget at session's end. "We did not tax the people of Florida at a time they could least afford it. We made sure we did not dip into reserves for future legislators."

But given what Rubio called "the worst budget conditions in the history of the state," the news in virtually every area of the budget was mixed at best.

Education lost $900 million, and Gov. Charlie Crist said he would approve a 6 percent tuition increase for community colleges and universities. Lawmakers used $300 million from a trust fund to shore up endangered Medicaid programs that serve low-income seniors and the chronically ill. But, being unwilling to spend one-time dollars on those ongoing programs, they repealed most parts of the programs, effective July 1, 2009.

"I recognize that there are people who are going to be hurt by some of the decisions we made," Rubio said. "We tried to balance the needs of Florida today with the needs of Florida tomorrow."

Geller faulted Republicans for failing to adopt Democrats' proposals worth more than $1 billion to raise the cigarette tax, repeal sales tax exemptions and close corporate tax loopholes.

"We cut prison guards, we cut child protective services, we were already 50th in the nation, according to U.S. Census data, in funding in education - and that was before our last two sets of tax cuts and before we reduced it further," he said.

Bob Butterworth, secretary of the Department of Children & Families, spoke gravely about the loss of child protection funding for sheriff's offices coming as bad economic times are increasing the number of abuse cases.

"We have seven sheriffs that do the child protection investigations for the state. The Legislature cut their budget by 5 percent, even though their caseloads are increasing. A number of sheriffs may not be able to continue on doing that service, which is not good," he said.

Butterworth did laud lawmakers for changing their minds about eliminating subsidies for new adoptions, one of the state's primary tools for boosting the rate of adoption for the state's foster kids. Lawmakers did not provide any of the $14 million that Crist recommended, but amended a bill on Friday to give DCF budgeting authority to use unspent trust-fund dollars to cover the shortfall.

'Social Wedge Issues'

House Democrats released a statement chiding Republicans for focusing on "truck ornaments, guns to work and social wedge issues."

Lawmakers indeed had made quite a show of their displeasure with the mock bull testicles designed to hang from truck bumpers. But a bill to ban the ornaments ultimately stalled. A high-profile bill allowing concealed weapons permit holders to keep their guns in their cars at work, trumping some employers' bans on guns on their property, passed.

Unsuccessful bills would have offered protections to teachers who expressed scientific criticism of evolution, which critics feared would allow creationism and intelligent design to creep into science classrooms.

And an effort to require women who seek abortions to have an ultrasound procedure first, and potentially view the imagery, died with a tense 20-20 tie vote in the Senate. It had handily passed out of the House.

Enemy No. 1: Time

The state's embattled multimillion-dollar deal with CSX Transportation to bring a commuter rail to Central Florida died a slow, painful death as backers tried last-minute maneuvering to bring up the project by attaching it to an unrelated transportation bill.

Friday, that bill's backer, Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, made an emotional speech on the floor about feeling pressured and manipulated, and the project ultimately was pulled from her bill.

The clock also ran out on Crist's populist pitch to appease drivers this summer by offering a 10-cent per gallon tax discount at the pump for two weeks in July. It had been proposed as an amendment to a giant transportation bill that didn't get anywhere.

A bill to overhaul Florida's higher education system and make the commissioner of education an elected position also died Friday. Although the measure sailed through the Senate, where it was a priority of Senate President Ken Pruitt, it had a much tougher time in the House. The bill would have gutted the power of the board of governors, the body that oversees higher education, and put more power into the hands of the Legislature, giving final authority to lawmakers over who gets to set tuition.

In the final hours of session, the Senate accepted a compromise from the House over expanding the state's Corporate Income Tax Credit Scholarship voucher program for low-income children. Currently serving about 20,000 kids, the program will expand by $30 million to an additional 5,000 children.

"I'm excited ... It's the biggest expansion of school choice in the country," said House sponsor Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa.

Crist had perhaps his biggest win on the final day of the session, when the House and Senate passed his plan to extend low-cost, limited health benefits insurance to Floridians who lack coverage.

House leaders wanted to pass not only Crist's plan but their own to create a little-regulated marketplace of health care products that the uninsured could access through their employers.

But Crist and senators had faulted the House plan as dangerous to consumers and too bureaucratic and costly, since it carries a $1.5 million price tag for the creation of a public-private corporation to oversee the "farmer's marketplace" of health care products. Friday, however, Crist said the House had agreed to sufficient regulation to make the bill carrying both plans - and the $1.5 million appropriation - worthy of his approval.

"Some great things happened today," Crist said. "Historic things happened today. Health care for the uninsured passed bipartisan, unanimously. This autism bill, unanimously. Florida leads the way for this and will continue to do so."

Reporters Catherine Dolinski, Nicola M. White, Russell Ray and Jerome R. Stockfisch can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT