Drew Wilson
The joint budget conference on Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development came a bit closer to agreement Monday afternoon, with the third House offer closing out the largest chunk of the $12.8 billion budget segment.
With the addition of $3.2 million for a trio of line items, lawmakers now agree on a $10.75 billion budget for the Department of Transportation. Among the changes was $2 million in trust fund money for a road project in Seminole County and another $225,000 for the Center for Urban Transportation and Research at the University of South Florida.
Despite agreement on DOT, there are still scores of discrepancies within the two chambers’ plans for the Department of Economic Opportunity.
Of course, neither chamber has allocated any money to the the Florida Enterprise Fund, an economic incentives program favored by Gov. Rick Scott, though the House and Senate also have multimillion dollar gulfs in Visit Florida and Space Florida funding.
Committee co-chair Sen. Jack Latvala said his House counterpart, Rep. Clay Ingram, had “bent overbackwards to be accommodating” and that the Senate has no plans to counter with another offer.
The Clearwater Republican said the upper chamber will either accept the House’s position on the remaining issues or bump them to the overall budget chiefs, Rep. Richard Cororan and Sen. Tom Lee.
