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An Emotional Legislative Session Winds Down

Tribune photo by COLIN HACKLEY

House Sergeant at arms Earnest Sumner, left, and Senate Sergeant at Arms Donald Severance drop their handkerchiefs to signal the end of the 2008 legislative session, Friday at the Capitol in Tallahassee.

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

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 4, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - They laughed - a lot - but cried plenty as well as they passed more than 270 new laws affecting everything from your property taxes to license plates for your car.

State lawmakers ended this year's emotional, grueling 60-day legislative session on Friday by passing a $66.2 billion budget that slashed $4 billion from education, health care, public safety and other areas of state spending. Budget cutting was this Legislature's dominant mission, the result of sinking state revenue, prompting $500 million in cuts to the current year's budget at the start of the session before work began on the pared spending plan for 2008-09.

Gov. Charlie Crist has said he will sign the budget, but has the power to veto individual spending items. He has 15 days after receiving the 400-page spending plan to submit both his signature and list of line-item vetoes. For bills, he also has 15 days to take action.

With precious little cash to go around - and GOP lawmakers determined not to raise taxes or end tax exemptions - bills failed by the dozens. Most carrying any significant cost were dead on arrival. Here's a look at what passed, what didn't, and how it may affect you:

Your Wallet

Sales tax holidays: Gone. This lean fiscal year, lawmakers agreed initially to ditch the state sales tax holiday for purchases of hurricane preparation supplies, and to shorten the state sales tax holiday on back-to-school items. But even that proposal failed to make it through the Senate.

Property taxes: No change. The Legislature last year sent to voters a proposal to double the homestead exemption and transfer Save Our Homes tax benefits, and Senate President Ken Pruitt appeared content to let Amendment 1 show results after it passed in January. There was heavy lifting on the property tax issue in the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, however.

Tuition: State universities and community colleges will get a 6 percent tuition increase.

Recreation: The cost of registering your boat goes up this year. Increases are across the board depending on boat length - a 16-26 footer will cost $28.75, up from $18.50; a 26-40 footer goes to $78.25, up from $50.50; and yachts over 110 feet will cost $189.75, up from $122.50. Those boats could be sailing on cleaner water, though - the Legislature passed a bill preventing casino ships from discharging wastewater into the Gulf.

Property insurance: Customers of Citizens Property Insurance Corp., a state-run company and the largest property insurer in the state, were given another 12-month reprieve from a rise in rates. The bill also requires companies to give more notice to policyholders they plan to drop and pay the undisputed portion of a claim within 90 days.

Smokers: Cigarette taxes will remain the same, despite pressure from some lawmakers to raise taxes by $1 per pack.

Education

Vouchers: Lawmakers allotted $30 million to expand the state's Corporate Income Tax Scholarship program, which allows poor children to attend private schools on the taxpayers' dime. The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission approved ballot language to give voters the chance to grant this and other voucher programs protection in the state Constitution from court challenges.

Class size: Cash-strapped school districts will continue to have to comply with the strict class-size caps approved by voters in 2002. Lawmakers tried to make the requirements more flexible, but the House and Senate failed to reach a compromise.

FCAT: No longer the sole criterion for grading high schools. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test will remain a key factor in school grades, but lawmakers voted to add other variables, such as graduation rates, into the mix.

Higher education: Senate leadership wanted to gut the power of the university system's board of governors and give the Legislature more authority over decisions in such areas as tuition. Their plan also would have made the education commissioner an elected position. It sputtered in the House and eventually died.

Evolution: Science educators won't have to present a "critical" analysis of Darwin's theory of evolution, but neither will they have special state protection if they do, after efforts by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Rep. Allan Hays, R-Umatilla, failed.

University of South Florida: By 2011, expect a bigger presence in Lakeland; the Legislature gave the green light for the university to build USF Polytechnic, a campus that would offer four-year degrees in information technology and applied sciences.

Transportation

Commuter rail for Central Florida: The high-profile, much-touted project crashed in the Senate, where critics questioned why the state wanted to pay CSX, the Jacksonville freight train giant, more than $650 million to use the company's tracks. CSX refused to sell the tracks unless the state agreed to pay up if there were any passenger accidents in the rail corridor, even if an accident were the company's fault.

Motorcycles: It's now illegal to pop a wheelie.

Health, Human Services

Autism: Large insurance plans will have to cover costly, interventional therapies for autistic children.

Foster and adoptive children: Lawmakers failed to fund a subsidy program to pay parents who adopt foster children after July 1, but agreed in the final hours of the session to give the state Department of Children & Families flexibility to shift unused trust fund money to cover the shortfall in adoptions. Foster kids "aging out" of the system now or recently will receive subsidies to help them with housing and other necessities, but there is no money in the budget to help those aging out next year.

Abortion: For the second year, Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa, tried to change state law to force doctors to perform ultrasounds prior to an abortion. The woman would then be asked if she wanted to see the image, but could sign a form saying she refused to look at it. The measure failed. Critics railed against the bill, saying it infringed on abortion rights.

Nursing homes: Cutting nearly $164 million to Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes, lawmakers gave nursing homes permission to lower the number of hours that nursing staff must spend with patients.

Byrd Center: No money, and no change. After months of trying to negotiate a merger between the University of South Florida and the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center & Research Institute, lawmakers decided instead to forgo funding the center for a year and leave the governance issue alone.

Moffitt Cancer Center: Moffitt lost $10 million to begin expanding its Tampa campus, which is built out. But its funding for programs and research remained largely intact, coming in at slightly more than $11 million.

Criminal Justice

Guns at work: A bill signed by Crist makes it illegal for employers to terminate employment if a worker keeps his gun locked up in his car during business hours. Only concealed weapons permit holders - about 500,000 Floridians - are covered by the law. Don't pack your pistol just yet, though. Several business groups have filed a lawsuit to block the law from taking effect.

Sex offenders: State residency laws won't change. Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, tried to streamline the state's myriad residency restriction laws by making it against the law for certain types of sex offenders to live less than 1,500 feet from places children gather, such as schools and day care centers.

Probation officers: Expect fewer of them. The state's budget calls for cutting 200 jobs from the Department of Corrections. State attorneys and public defenders also face job cuts - 167 and 126, respectively.

Wrongful incarceration: People who go to jail for crimes they didn't commit will be paid $50,000 for every year of wrongful imprisonment under a measure pushed by Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa. But anyone with a prior felony wouldn't qualify. Some lawmakers said that was unfair, but the Republican majority felt it was needed to prevent automatic compensation to career criminals.

Grow houses: Penalties are stiffened for cultivating, packaging and distributing marijuana in homes.

Environment, Energy

Energy: A comprehensive energy plan would penalize utilities for not reducing greenhouse gas emissions and establish lower emissions standards for new cars and light trucks. What's more, it would require all gasoline sold in Florida to contain 10 percent ethanol by January 2011. The energy plan also calls for regulators to require utilities to produce a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy sources.

Florida Forever: The state's popular land-buying program has been extended for another 10 years. This means one local project, the purchase of the 12,500-acre Cross Bar Ranch in central Pasco County, is a step closer to reality.

Everglades: Restoration for the River of Grass got a last-minute funding plug of $50 million this legislative session. This is half of what Everglades restoration normally gets, but more than zero, which was what originally was earmarked for the project.

Water: Lawmakers slated $15 million for the Southwest Florida Water Management District to embark on a major water restoration project spanning 5,100 miles and eight counties.

Recycling: Two Pinellas County lawmakers tried to get recycling bins installed at all state-operated organizations and public airports. The bill fizzled at the last minute.

Also Of Interest

Bestiality: Still legal in Florida

State Song: "Old Folks at Home," also known as "Swanee River," will be changed to leave out racially offensive lyrics. A second song, "Florida - Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky," submitted by a music teacher for a statewide contest, will become the state anthem.

Vehicle, um, decorations: Carry on with the popular pickup accoutrement: so-called Truck Nutz. The anatomically correct accessories, modeled after bull testicles, were outlawed by the Senate but had immunity in the House, so no $60 fine after all.

License plates: Added to the roster of 109 specialty plates now available are new ones touting Florida tennis, lighthouses and horses. Lawmakers declined to approve an "I Believe" plate promoting faith-based education, but endorsed a plate bearing the state motto "In God We Trust."

Public campaign financing: Continues, despite a proposal to end it.

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

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