Republicans take pride in reducing class size without raising taxes during a hectic last day that raided savings, but crafted a budget.
By STEVE BOUSQUET, LUCY MORGAN and ALISA ULFERTS
Published May 28, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - After months of rancorous debate, the Florida Legislature late Tuesday carried out voters' demands to ban smoking in workplaces and reduce class sizes.
In the final hours of their 15-day special session, lawmakers approved a bill that prohibits smoking in most public places by July 1. Bars that get up to 10 percent of their business from food are exempt but will have to prove it every three years.
To reduce class sizes, lawmakers borrowed money for new construction and encouraged students to finish high school faster.
The Legislature also approved a $53.5-billion budget that forces deep cuts in public schools and opens a gaping financial hole by raiding savings accounts of $1.3-billion that won't be there next year. Republicans voted for the budget, Democrats against.
Still, their work is not yet done. Lawmakers return June 16-19 to tackle medical malpractice - and maybe a few other matters.
Trying to reverse overwhelming public disapproval of the failed regular session earlier this month, lawmakers enacted bills dealing with workers' compensation, car insurance fraud, Everglades restoration and the state's share of court operations. Lost in the shuffle, however, were bills to help struggling high school seniors pass the FCAT, and to comply with federal election requirements in exchange for millions of federal dollars.
After a shaky day of stops and starts, legislative leaders were proud of their work.
"We have proven the Legislature can function if given the opportunity to do so," said Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville.
"You should be very proud of yourselves," House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, told the House shortly after 11 p.m. "You basically saved our state."
House Majority Leader Marco Rubio, R-Coral Gables, praised lawmakers for "resisting the short-term expediency of raising taxes."
Democrats assailed the GOP for raising college tuition, requiring low-income people to pay a greater share of their prescription drugs and raiding trust funds to avoid increasing taxes. One of the last bills that passed requires volunteers who work with children to pay $18 for a criminal background check if a law enforcement agency doesn't pay for it.
"This is a bad budget," said Rep. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa.
Republicans prided themselves on a class size bill that carries out the public's will without raising taxes. Democrats derided it as "the dumbing down of public education in the state of Florida." The bill reduces from 24 to 18 the number of credits needed to graduate from high school and from 135 to 120 the number of hours required for high school class.
The class size compromise lets high school students earn a diploma in three years, and expands a program that gives tax breaks to corporations that donate vouchers for poor students.
The effort to pass a smoking bill bogged down over a House provision requiring more than 4,000 bars to file audits with the state every three years to prove that they were getting no more than 10 percent of gross sales from food, the threshold to be considered a restaurant. The audit requirement prevailed.
The bill bans smoking in restaurants and workplaces on July 1, but exempts fraternal and civic groups that staff their own events and in a section of the customs areas for arriving passengers at international airports.
The smoking bill was not the only hangup of the last day of the two-week overtime session. Lawmakers also couldn't agree to provide remedial classes and testing options to high school seniors who cannot graduate because they have failed the FCAT. Gov. Jeb Bush added the issue to the agenda last week after a clamor in South Florida. Nearly 13,000 Florida seniors have not passed the FCAT.
They also failed to pass legislation to comply with new federal elections requirements to collect millions in federal money.
The budget dominated the day's proceedings.
The bleakest budget in a decade will force tens of thousands of people with developmental disabilities to languish on waiting lists. Community colleges are threatening to close their doors to new students.
College students face a tuition hike of 8.5 percent, and poor people who go to a hospital emergency room for basic care will be charged $15 per visit. Previous cuts to adult hearing and vision programs were not restored.
Laggard lawmakers pushed the budget toward the finish line in an atmosphere of mounting disgust. Even Republicans said the budget doesn't meet the state's needs and is being kept afloat with a passel of new fees and accounting tricks that allow lawmakers to postpone facing up to the state's long-range revenue problems.
"I have voted for my last budget in the state of Florida that's put together with Band-Aids and paper clips, where we put Band-Aids on cancers and ignore the realities," said Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who's in line to become Senate president late next year.
The budget increases Florida's mounting debt load. But it also contains about $300-million in tax cuts, including a continued phaseout of a tax on stock portfolios, an accelerated tax credit for business equipment depreciation and expansion of a tax break for corporations that pay for school vouchers.
Lawmakers cut arts and cultural programs by more than half. They also approved 4,000 more prison beds, and preserved the popular PACE Centers for Girls, but trimmed about $14-million from juvenile crime prevention programs.
The Senate vote was 27-13, with one Democrat, Sen. Al Lawson of Tallahassee, joining all 26 Republicans in voting yes. But the budget does one thing: It allows lawmakers to get out of town and meet their sole constitutional obligation.
Democrats railed against the Republican majority's priorities, and most House Democrats were prepared to vote against the budget. But the minority scored some budget victories, including keeping the Bright Futures scholarship program intact and limiting university presidents' annual salaries to $225,000 from state funds.
Cancer awareness is among the budget's many casualties. In Tampa, the American Cancer Society's Florida Division cited lawmakers' "deliberate neglect" of cancer awareness by ending funding for a breast and cervical cancer screening program named in memory of the late Mary Brogan, the wife of former Republican Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan.
Lawmakers also reduced the heralded antismoking advertising campaign from $39-million to $1-million, with the money shifted to substance abuse programs instead.
Passage of the budget came nearly a month late, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $600,000.
The strain on lawmakers to show progress on major issues was obvious as they labored into the night to overhaul the workers' compensation code and resolve other issues.
Democratic lawmakers said the rewrite of workers' compensation, passed by both chambers and sent to the governor, would not reduce rates as promised, and would deprive injured workers of the limited protection that now exists.
One of the Legislature's last acts was to repeal a $15 fee increase on insurance policies sold by managing general agents, and a $10 increase on all car insurance policies sold by specialty agents. The fees passed with little notice in the regular session, but some legislators were embarrassed to discover they had imposed the fees on poor drivers.
"This is a greed tax," said Rep. Randy Johnson, R-Celebration, who led the drive to repeal the fees.
A spokeswoman for Bush, Alia Faraj, said the governor hoped the Legislature would approve the FCAT bill.
Senate President King said he was reluctant to pass the bill and said: "It's just that the Senate doesn't lend itself to immediacy."
- Times staff writers Stephen Hegarty and Anita Kumar and researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.
Highlights of the Florida legislative session
Legislation that passed includes:
A $53.5-billion state budget.
Implementation of an amendment to reduce class sizes.
A measure to ease concerns of environmentalists and members of Congress about the state's commitment to cleaning up the Everglades.
The biggest changes to the workers' compensation law in nearly a decade.
Implementation of an amendment requiring the state to pay court costs.
Implementation of an amendment banning smoking in restaurants.
Legislation that failed includes:
Giving seniors who did not pass the FCAT a last chance to get a diploma.
Complying with new federal elections requirements and restoring a second primary.
