Perspective

Cut budget with care, without gimmicks

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published September 30, 2007

There is no painless way to cut more than $1-billion from a state budget that already doesn't come close to meeting Florida's needs. The best the Legislature can do in this week's special session is to wield the budget knife carefully and avoid making a bad situation worse. That means setting appropriate priorities and avoiding the temptation to take the easy way out.

First, lawmakers should follow through with plans to raise tuition by 5 percent at community colleges and universities. Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed that tuition increase in the spring and still opposes it. But it is not unreasonable when tuition is so low and demands on higher education already are so high.

Second, sparing public schools from any cuts as the governor proposes isn't realistic. That would mean cutting too deeply in other areas such as social services or resorting to short-term budget tricks. Lawmakers appear poised to embrace a reasonable per student spending cut that still would leave public schools with an overall increase of more than 5 percent. It will be difficult, but enrollment growth has leveled off and most public school districts should be able to prevent the cuts from directly affecting students in the classroom.

Third, legislators must resist the urge to rely too heavily on nonrecurring, one-time money to pay for recurring expenses. That only digs a deeper budget hole for next year, when the gap between revenue and expenses already is expected to grow. Crist softened his proposed cuts by over-relying on such one-time money and assuming the financial picture will brighten next year. But his optimism is not supported by the economic trends in housing and consumer spending.

For a more sober assessment of the challenges facing Florida, turn to former Sen. Bob Graham's piece on the op-ed page. Graham's concerns about the lack of investment in higher education, the increasing reliance on local property taxes instead of state dollars to pay for public schools and the rising number of uninsured children should be shared by all -- regardless of party affiliation. Combine those troubling trends with a shaky economy and a tax system not built for this century, and Florida's future is far cloudier than the rosy rhetoric often coming from Tallahassee suggests.

The governor and the Legislature have some hard spending decisions to make over the next two weeks. There will be efforts to postpone pain by budget gimmickry. There will be attempts to use budget cuts to settle old scores (Exhibit A: The Johnny B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center and Research Institute in Tampa, which could lose most or all of its $15-million in state money unless cooler heads prevail). Other expensive pet projects, such as new medical schools at the University of Central Florida and Florida International University, should be delayed but probably won't be because they are protected by powerful lawmakers still in power. But the focus should be on the bottom line: Cutting spending in ways that do the least damage now without causing even more problems later.

This is just the beginning of a series of budget decisions that will only get more difficult. Florida's looming financial challenges will be tough enough without digging the hole even deeper.

[Last modified October 1, 2007, 08:43:54]