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Deal Nears On State Budget

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By WILLIAM MARCH

wmarch@tampatrib.com

Published: January 11, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Florida lawmakers made some of the final decisions Saturday on cutting $2.4 billion from the state budget, making painful and politically controversial cuts in programs that range from preserving environmental land to providing elderly people in-home living assistance.

Legislators worked their way through a few areas of disagreement between the Senate and House versions of the budget cuts, including settling on a Senate proposal to suspend the Florida Forever land preservation program for a year.

That means dozens of land-purchase deals statewide, including several in the Tampa Bay area, will be delayed, and some likely canceled.

Still undecided late Saturday was the fate of the Lawton Chiles Endowment, a fund set up from the proceeds of the state's 1997 anti-tobacco lawsuit. Interest from the fund normally provides $55 million a year for child welfare and health care, elderly health programs and anti-smoking efforts.

Both the Senate and House proposed taking substantial sums from the fund.

But one of the few areas of public health care and welfare unscathed by the budget cuts, under a program that got agreement from both legislative houses, is Medicaid funding for nursing home patients.

The Legislature agreed to cut the reimbursement rate paid to nursing homes for Medicaid patients, but also added a new program that will bring in more federal money, almost completely making up the difference.

"It's not new money," said Rep. Kevin Ambler, R-Lutz, who led the House side in the negotiations. "It's a way of using leveraged money.

Under the program, 463 nursing homes that care for Medicaid patients will contribute to a pool used to provide extra aid to those with the largest numbers of Medicaid patients. Nursing homes make less money from Medicaid patients than from private-pay patients, and some say they lose money.

But the homes will benefit because the federal government matches the money the homes put into the pool, which will bring Florida $34 million a year in new federal money.

"You're getting a net increase of 10 cents more back on every dollar that you've paid in," Ambler said. "In the end they should be really in good shape."

Some homes with few Medicaid patients will be net losers from the program, said Tony Marshall, vice president of the Florida Health Care Association, the state's largest nursing home trade association. But all but a handful of those will still be better off than if they had to accept the reimbursement cuts without the new program.

Land Preservation Suspended

Environmentalists, hoping to preserve state land through Florida Forever, were not as lucky.

Eric Draper, of the Florida Audubon Society, said cutting this year's appropriation for the fund will save the state only $5 million this year, but will prevent the borrowing of $250 million through a bond issue intended to finance dozens of land purchases - many of them already approved by the state Cabinet.

Two of the most environmentally important, he said, include 200 acres in the Lake Wales Ridge area, among the few remaining undisturbed tracts of the Central Florida "scrub" ecosystem, and several thousand acres along the upper Kissimmee River, part of the river restoration project intended to clean up the river and Lake Okeechobee.

But planned Southwest Florida Water Management District purchases of hundreds of acres on the Alafia River in Hillsborough County, the Hillsborough River and Cypress Creek in Pasco County, the Myakka River in Manatee County and the Peace River in Polk County are also on the list of cuts.

"There's no guarantee the Legislature will come back and provide for those bonds to be sold later," Draper said. "Some of the landowners will hang in there because there won't be any other buyers, but most will look for other buyers."

Food Stamps Get Additional Funding

The state budget cuts aren't likely to lead to many state employees losing jobs but will lead to eliminating more than 1,400 mostly vacant positions, said state Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, the Senate budget chief.

While they cut almost everywhere else, lawmakers increased by $2 million spending for the administration of food stamps and other public assistance.

The money will pay staff overtime required by a deluge of new claims. Florida has added more than 600,000 food stamp recipients, a 49 percent increase, during the past 20 months, said Department of Children & Families Secretary George Sheldon.

Democrats in the Legislature contend that at least some of the cuts could have been avoided by increasing revenue with increased cigarette taxes and closing of corporate tax loopholes.

But Republicans, who dominate both chambers, rejected the idea of any tax increase, and said they wanted to wait until the regular session of the Legislature this spring to work on altering Florida's tax structure.

Legislative leaders expect to resolve differences between the House and Senate no later than Monday to produce a unified plan. It will plug a hole of at least $2.3 billion in the current $66.3 billion budget, which runs through June 30.

A final vote is expected by Friday to close out a two-week special session.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

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