Senators ax post of solicitor general

Senators slice $800-million out of the budget, along with Tom Warner's job, while skirmishing with the House.

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 27, 2001

TALLAHASSEE -- Tom Warner is running for Florida attorney general.

And he'll have plenty of time to campaign if the Legislature approves the budget cuts currently on the table.

That's because Warner's current job -- he is Florida's first solicitor general -- is one of the positions state senators eliminated Thursday when they cut some $800-million in state services out of the budget. (House members still have to vote on the final cuts.)

And Warner doesn't think it's a coincidence that one of his rivals for the attorney general's job, state Sen. Locke Burt, sits on the committee that agreed to cut his job.

The cut was "absolutely" politically motivated, Warner said Friday.

But Burt insisted Friday he had no part in proposing the cuts, which he said were worked out by budget staffers.

"Nobody's ever going to believe that, but no," Burt said when asked if he engineered the cuts.

The budget cut package senators approved Thursday includes a nearly $250,000 reduction in the office of attorney general. Unlike in other parts of the Senate cut plan, where senators reduced the funding but let the agencies decide where to cut, senators spelled out their intent to eliminate the Office of Solicitor General.

The solicitor general is the chief litigator for the state. Warner is paid more than $150,000 a year; he says about half of his salary is paid through an endowed chair at Florida State University.

Attorney General Bob Butterworth said the program was considered for cutting because it's only been around since 1999 and budget cutters wanted to cut new programs before they sliced into established services.

But like Warner, Butterworth said he'd been told that the cuts would be restored by the time a committee of House and Senate members sat down to resolve the differences in their packages.

"I was under the impression that the cut was not going to take place. But, of course, if there's no conference, the cut stays," Butterworth said.

He was referring to an unusual move by the House on Thursday. It tentatively accepted the Senate's budget package without a companion measure to partially repeal a cut in the state's intangibles tax on stocks and bonds.

Senate leaders were caught off guard by the House move to skip the traditional negotiations to resolve differences in budget plans. The move would leave a $128-million hole in the budget, which House members want to fill by using a rainy day fund.

Warner's job wasn't the only thing caught in the cross-fire between the House and Senate. Rep. Mike Fasano's plan -- approved by the House earlier in the week -- to kill lawmakers' most recent pay raise got stuck.

Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said he had an agreement with Sen. Lisa Carlton, R-Osprey, for the Senate to take up his salary cut bill. But instead the Senate applied the salary cut to other elected state officials.

Since then, Senate President John McKay's has vowed that he'll send no more bills to the House for approval. As a result, the future of Fasano's bill is uncertain.

"It's a bit disappointing," Fasano said.

"I was hoping we'd send a bill to the governor that cuts our salary before we cut the budget."

House Democrats are urging all lawmakers to reject the Senate budget cutting plan, which they say cuts too deeply into education, health care and public safety.

After July 1, 2002, more than 5,000 pregnant women will lose health care services and another some 36,000 adults will lose their prescription drug and other health care coverage if the Senate's budget cuts are approved, according to Democrats.

"The only responsible vote on this bad budget bill is a "no' vote," House Democratic Leader Lois Frankel said in a statement.

Frankel said the budget "balances the budget on the back of some of Florida's most needy citizens, takes a step backwards for public schools and threatens public safety."

The last part concerns the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which warned Friday that a proposed plan to cut hundreds of probation officers means paroled criminals will have less supervision.

"Public safety is going to be compromised," said association president Gil Fortner.

"This is a penny-wise fix that's going to cost us pounds in the future."

-- Times staff writer Lucy Morgan contributed to this report.

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