Florida Legislature officially sets special session to discuss $2.3 billion budget shortfall

By Paul Flemming - FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU

It's official.

The Legislature will meet in special session Jan. 5-16 to true up the state's budget and the $2.3 billion gap between revenue and spending. Gambling and cigarette taxes are definitely out. Class-size spending and increased speeding fines are in.

House Speaker Ray Sansom and Senate President Jeff Atwater on Tuesday evening signed the call for the special session, a constitutionally required step for the Legislature to meet outside its required 60-day spring session. The call signed by Atwater and Sansom also sets out the limits of what can be considered for lawmakers. Anything outside the call requires a super majority of lawmakers to be taken up.

Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island and in line to be president of the Senate in 2010, said increased user fees for courts are reasonable.

"A person using the court system is using it at such a reduction of cost and being funded by other taxpayers," Haridopolos said. "When you and I get on the turnpike, we pay for that, it's a user's fee. It's a fundamental issue to look at. I don't say all the $2.3 billion is there, far from it."

Also on the block for change is the money required by the constitution — approved by voters in an amendment referendum — for minimal school class sizes. Some of the money for construction to meet class-size requirements, as well as state dictates on spending on textbooks and transportation for instance, could be freed up for local districts to decide how to meet expenses.

"The supreme irony of education budgeting and spending in Florida today is we are in the midst of this once-in-a-generation crisis in education funding and being forced to build classrooms for tens of thousands of nonexistent students. If it costs us one more dollar (to meet class-size mandates), that's a dollar that we're diverting from doing what we ought to do."

Democrats have made noise about raising taxes on cigarettes to help balance the budget. That's explicitly out.

House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands of Weston earlier this week called for open hearings on the budget process.

Freshman House member Alan Williams, a Tallahassee Democrat, said listening to Democrats' ideas is important.

"One thing that does concern me is that we're not at the table," Williams said, before the call was issued that set the scope of the special session. "I hope those in leadership see that call (that Sands made for inclusion). This is not just a call from the 44 members of the Democratic Caucus, this is a call from the 18 million people that are going to be impacted by these decisions."

Implicity out is Gov. Charlie Crist's proposal to affirm the court-rejected agreement he made with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to allow Vegas-style gambling at the tribe's casinos and, thus, have the $135 million the tribe agreed to pay the state. Both Atwater and Sansom have said that won't be considered until spring's regular session.

- The Tallahassee Democrat