Gov. Rick Scott's proposed state budget for 2016-17 offers $1 billion in tax cuts primarily for businesses — but not a dollar to process thousands of rape kits waiting for attention. It includes an additional $250 million more in tax incentives for businesses that bring jobs — but slashes payments to hospitals for treating the poor by even more. It adds millions to lure more tourists — but nothing to increase staffing inside dangerous state mental hospitals where violent patients attack staffers and each other. These skewed priorities reflect a governor more interested in his political future than running the state, and the Florida Legislature should set this mess aside and draft a more responsible spending plan.
Scott's proposed $79.3 billion budget is aimed at generating headlines to use in his next campaign rather than investing in a state government facing systemic failure in nearly every corner. A $1 billion tax cut. Record per-student spending for public education. No tuition increases at colleges and universities. To listen to the governor this week as he bragged about a declining unemployment rate and a recovering economy fueled by rising housing prices and record tourism, Florida's future has never been this sunny. But the state's rebound from the Great Recession has been in spite of the governor's administration rather than because of it, and the recovery is not nearly as robust as his proposed budget suggests.
Most governors take liberties in their spending plans to free up money, and Scott relies on familiar gimmicks such as spending one-time money on recurring expenses and sweeping millions from dedicated trust funds to spend on other priorities — robbing Peter to pay Paul. This governor has taken the sleight of hand to a new level by claiming the state has more money to spend next year than it does. Scott claims a projected budget surplus of $1.3 billion, but state economists say the more realistic surplus after paying for essential needs is $635 million. That is less than 1 percent of a budget approaching $80 billion and not close to what Florida needs to address pressing needs ranging from prisons to education to social services.
Scott helps pay for his business tax cuts by slashing hundreds of millions from hospitals that would help cover the cost of treating low-income patients who are on Medicaid or uninsured. He would increase per-student spending by $116 to finally surpass the record set in 2007-08, but most of that new money will come from higher property taxes as a result of rising property values instead of from the state. In fact, the state's overall contribution to public schools would drop by nearly 2 percent and the contribution by local property taxpayers would rise by more than 2 percent, to more than 45 percent of the total. The Republican legislative leaders already have expressed skepticism about Scott's tax cuts and his cost shift on public schools, and they are not likely to embrace his all-out attack on hospitals.
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Explore all your optionsThe governor makes additional investments in areas such as higher education, mental health, prisons and the environment. But he is stingy. He increases performance-based funding for universities to $100 million, but the schools have to come up with half of that total. The mental health spending increases are modest and do not include additional staff at state mental hospitals. The 472 new correctional officers are fewer than half of what his Department of Corrections says it needs. And despite his claims, Scott does not come close to fully funding efforts to buy and conserve land as voters intended when they approved Amendment 1.
Florida cannot afford $1 billion in tax cuts and an additional $250 million set aside to lure companies here to create jobs when state workers would go without raises for the eighth straight year and so many areas need immediate attention. Scott calls this the Florida First budget. It should be called Scott First, Business Second — and everyone else fight for the crumbs.