Will Florida leaders sober up on $115B budget bender? | Editorial [Orlando Sentinel]

Editor's note: The headline on this editorial should have said $115B ($115 billion).

As talks race forward on what is likely to be a record-setting, $115-million-plus state spending plan for 2023-24, a tipsy trend seems to be emerging. Drunk on COVID money, Florida lawmakers are making promises that might not be sustainable in coming years.

Some of these promises, such as House Speaker Paul Renner's insistence on expanding health insurance options for Florida's children, are smart and worthy priorities. Others, however, are disasters in the making, such as an apparent attempt to remake the state's public-education spending plan against the vast and unknowable budget drain of the foolhardy vouchers-for-all plan passed earlier in the session.

That might be a fair trade off if these leaders also agreed to sober up and confront the flaws in Florida's tax system. But since they have been hellbent on preserving tax policies that benefit Wall Street CEOs and investors more than the average Florida resident, it's more likely to lead to deep and painful cuts in years to come.

But who worries about that when there's a righteous kegger going on?

Want that? Sure.

Lawmakers face a definitive last call for budget talks: The final version must hit lawmakers' desks Tuesday night for a mandatory cooling-off period before the scheduled end of session on May 5. As competing House and Senate spending plans move through conference committee talks, a trend seems to be emerging: on issues where one side or the other is digging in its heels, the other chamber is giving in -- or leaving those differences unresolved for budget chairs and, eventually, Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo to hammer out.

Some big picture spending -- such as Renner's $35 million expansion of Healthy Kids, which helps parents to buy private-market coverage for their school-aged children -- are relatively easy to track. As of now, the Senate (which originally didn't fund the expansion at all) is allowing itself to be tugged closer to that benchmark.

But big, unanswered questions still hang out there. Tragically, that includes the fate of thousands of disabled Floridians who have suffered for years (in some cases, more than a decade) on waiting lists for essential services they need to live with dignity. That's bleeding over into the debate over state spending on long-term care. This year, both House and Senate back a nearly $100 million increase in reimbursement rates for nursing homes that could be multiplied by the failure to help disabled Floridians remain in their own homes.

Other spending patterns, including a bigger-than-ever total for budget "turkeys" that are stuffed into the budget at the behest of individual lawmakers, are also evident as budget talks move forward. This year more than ever, it's easy to see how partisan politics hits home in the most brutal of ways: Projects proposed for predominantly Democratic areas like Orange and Broward counties are dropping out (even though those two counties produce a disproportionate share of the sales-tax revenues that keep the state budget afloat) while the wild turkeys targeted for Republican lawmakers' districts are multiplying.

Meanwhile, we suspect many of the family-friendly tax cuts proposed for the coming year including sales tax exemptions for things like paper towels and baby diapers won't endure for long when revenues start to dwindle. The same goes for environmental funding, such as septic-to-sewer conversions critical to cleaning the Indian River Lagoon. Though each conversion is a one-time expense, the overall numbers mean this effort could drag on for years.

Overshadowing it all, however, is the cost of one huge drain that could suck billions from Florida's education budget.

Vouchers' long straw

Lawmakers have agreed to set aside $350 million to protect school districts against the impacts of the vouchers-for-all plan passed earlier this year. That's a guess, and it could be low. It's going to be hard to justify turning off the tap on low-income families because wealthier parents have claimed state checks for private schools their kids have been attending all along.

In separate legislation, they've also approved a plan to shift $450 million of public-school construction money to charter schools.

In apparent preparation for those drains, lawmakers are taking the unprecedented step of removing mandatory spending allocations that they have traditionally forced on local school boards through a complex formula meant to keep education spending equitable from county to county.

Call us cynical, but we doubt the Legislature has found a sudden interest in local control. It's far more likely that lawmakers are planning to push the pain of their reckless decisions down to county level school boards, who will have to make the call: Do they fund textbooks or transportation? Cut teacher salaries or popular career-preparation programs? One thing is clear: In future years, these decisions will be coming. And they will hurt.

We'd never compare Renner and Passidomo to bar patrons stumbling into the parking lot with keys in hand. But they have a similarly short window to make critical last-minute decisions. Agreeing to a hard cap on voucher spending in addition to that safety net could be the equivalent of calling an Uber.

The morning after

One of the worst aspects of waking up after a budget bender: Tallying the damage that nobody saw while the spending party was raging. In recent editorials we've tagged some special interest tax breaks that favor the wealthiest and most powerful in Florida, including a multi-million-dollar gift to Universal resorts in Central Florida. But the cuts that should worry us the most are the ones nobody sees, slipped into the budget at the behest of special interest groups that know how to cover their tracks.

When Gov. Ron DeSantis reviews the budget for vetoes, he should focus on rooting out as many of those giveaways as he can.

In a perfect world, this year's orgy of free spending could also lead to a comprehensive overhaul of Florida's exemption-riddled, fundamentally unfair tax system, which puts the heaviest burden on low-income taxpayers while corporations exploit loopholes that allow them to wriggle out of their rightful obligations.

History has taught Florida taxpayers not to expect that, and as we said above, we're not optimistic. But if Renner, Passidomo and DeSantis take a moment to soberly reflect on the future they are creating before they put the final stamp of approval on this year's plan, they could blunt the potential impact of a massive hangover in years to come.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at [email protected]

(C)2023 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.