Christine Jordan Sexton
Gov. Rick Scott told state agencies Thursday to compile a list by Monday of critical services that people “cannot lose” and submit them to his office to help prepare a budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year.
Scott’s memo to agency heads includes a list of critical services the Office of Planning and Budgeting has identified for the upcoming budget year, which starts July 1.
Those services include increased funding for K-12 enrollment, Medicaid caseload increase, a Department of Transportation Work Plan, minimum operating requirements necessary to keep the Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee running, environmental initiatives consistent with Amendment 1, and economic development and housing at current level funding, among other areas to be funded in a base budget.
Scott wants the agencies to prepare their own lists of critical services “in the event Florida is forced into a government showdown on July 1,” according to the memo.
The governor sent the memo after House and Senate budget leaders met all day Wednesday to discuss how the Legislature can move ahead its the 2015-16 spending plan. Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee said he and Richard Corcoran had discussed the base budget approach Scott keeps discussing. However, he said they also discussed a traditional budget where the chambers agreed to allocations and meet in conference to develop the spending plan.
Lee told Florida Politics that the Legislature is leaning toward a traditional budget and not the base budget the Scott contemplates.
In his Thursday memo, Scott also contends Senate President Andy Gardiner may be the reason the state faces a shutdown: “It is possible that Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and the Florida Senate will not agree to any budget without the specific expansion of Medicaid (at a cost to state taxpayers of $5 billion over 10 years).”
The Legislature adjourned the 2015 session without passing the one must-pass bill: the General Appropriations Act, the state budget. The House of Representatives and the Senate could not bridge a $4 billion difference in their spending plans. The allocation impasse was caused by the Senate accepting federal funding to expand Medicaid under Obamacare and the continuation of the $2.2 billion Low Income Pool program.
Scott has consistently said since the Legislature left Tallahassee that he is working on a “continuation” or “base” budget for the state to avoid a government shutdown.
