Bruce Ritchie
When you attend a House appropriations subcommittee where a chairman’s budget proposals are being unveiled, you might expect to hear some tough questions from Democrats and Republicans.
And you might be disappointed, at least by the subcommittee that deals with environmental and agricultural spending.
Most of the debate I hear in the House occurs only when the proposed budget reaches the floor
That comes at the end of what Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, calls the “theater performance” on the state budget. Most of the budget decisions have been made and legislators already know how they’re going to vote.
With concerns now being raised about the continual weakening of Florida’s Sunshine Law, Pafford, the House Democratic leader, says the House budget-writing process is being overlooked.
At the Associated Press pre-session planning meeting on Jan. 28, Pafford talked about the need to address spending for Medicaid, public education and the environment when the legislative session starts March 3.
But Pafford also said that a barrier to coming up with smart policy is the mystery that shrouds the process of developing the state budget each year. Step one is issuing allocations that set how much money is spent in each area of state government.
“We don’t know where that allocation is coming from,” Pafford said. “It’s going to drop down from the ceiling like an oxygen bag (in an airplane).”
Then the appropriations subcommittee chairmen pass out their budget recommendations as the clock on the 60-day session is ticking down. Subcommittee members, seeing the recommendations for the first time at the meeting, are encouraged to raise questions or meet with the chairman in private.
That creates what Pafford calls a “closed-door process” for coming up with the state budget and setting spending priorities.
Pafford raised similar issues last year before he became the House Democratic leader. He was the ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that writes the budget for agricultural and environmental spending.
In 2014, the chairman’s recommendations were passed out followed by only three minutes of questioning by Pafford and one other committee member. A week later those recommendations were voted into the budget bill at the full appropriations committee.
When I asked Pafford two weeks later to comment on environmental spending in the proposed budget, he said priorities already had been decided when the allocations were set. When I asked the appropriations chairman and subcommittee chairman to respond, they said the time for raising issues had been at the subcommittee meeting.
Last month, Pafford told the news reporters and editors gathered in Tallahassee that House Democrats and most Republicans are left out of the process. Democrats can offer budget amendments, but Pafford said they generally don’t get passed because they’re in the minority party.
I say that legislators still can play a role by asking more questions during every public meeting, even if they don’t know what’s in the chairman’s spending recommendations that they’ve just been handed.
They can ask how their chamber’s budget proposal differs from what the governor is requesting.
And this year, they should ask about the allocation of spending under Amendment 1, which is supposed to provide an estimated $757 million for water and land conservation. Did voters want more money spent on land-buying or did they just want a new name for existing spending?
The legislators all were sent to Tallahassee to represent the people of their districts.
Even if they don’t play a key role in writing the budget, they can still ask the important questions.
Bruce Ritchie (@bruceritchie) is an independent journalist covering environment and growth management issues in Tallahassee. He also is editor of Floridaenvironments.com.
