Jim Rosica
The good news out of the first meeting of the Legislature’s general government budget conference, held Wednesday night, was how close the House and Senate already are.
A relatively small gulf of about $9.2 million separated the two budgets, worth roughly $2 billion each, from the House Government Operations & Technology Appropriations Subcommittee, and the Senate General Government Appropriations Subcommittee.
“It goes to show you how far apart we aren’t,” said state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, the Spring Hill Republican chairing the conference committee.
The House’s first offer totals $2,056,896,564 to the Senate’s starting position of $2,066,069,708.
Sen. David Simmons, an Altamonte Springs Republican and the conference’s vice-chair, accepted the offer but did not say when the conference would next meet.
As an example, Ingoglia mentioned the different approaches in dealing with a case backlog at the Florida Commission on Human Relations.
The Senate wants to hire five new full-timers; the House wants to hire temporary workers, which would cost about $50,000 less.
Ingoglia did hint at a handful of policy-laden spending questions he already knows he doesn’t feel comfortable in handling.
When asked what they were, he smiled: “That’s for us to know and you find out on the second pass.”
