TALLAHASSEE - The state still faces a deficit of up to $700 million this fiscal year - and $5 billion next year - despite last month's budget-cutting session, the Senate's top budget chief said Monday.
On top of that, said JD Alexander, head of the Senate's Ways and Means committee, property taxes are expected to yield $1 billion less than the state needs just to maintain the status quo for K-12 public school funding.
The sobering budget news sets the stage for a spring repeat of last year's legislative session, when lawmakers had to carve into both the current and coming year's spending plans. The upcoming session will bring especially painful twists: deeper budget holes and difficult decisions about raising taxes.
Alexander doesn't expect the stimulus package to cure budget woes. (It was never intended to.) The State Senate is fighting each other over stimulus money.
Nan Rich was a voice of reason. Charlie Crist's budget director, Jerry McDaniel, health care budget committee $4 million in federal Medicaid money was coming. McDaniel suggested moving money the state had for Medicaid to pay for other programs. Rich would have none of that.
Sen. Nan Rich, vice chairwoman of the Senate's health care budget committee, responded with alarm. "I'm having a real hard time understanding how we're looking at having excess money when we don't fund our Medicaid program properly, or many other areas of health care - that this becomes a pot of gold for other people to use."
Another problem is Obama's oversight inspectors would ask Florida to immediately repay for the Medicaid money. Obama made it clear stimulus money isn't made to pay for other programs. That is exactly is what McDaniel is proposing. Fiscal conservatism has become opportunism.
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