The Fine Print

House plans to review 51 sales tax exemptions

As the sun was going down in Tallahassee on Friday evening, the House released a list of 51 sale exemptions that will be discussed for repeal during the upcoming session. Lawmakers are looking at the exemptions because lawmakers must figure out how to deal with at least a $5 billion budget shortfall.

Here's the list:  Download Discuss for Repeal List

In her message to members of the House Finance and Tax Council, Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff stated: "As others in the House continue their budget review, our task is to examine the other side of the ledger to make sure that we are presenting Floridians with a fair and efficient tax system."

The most interesting items that were included on the list were the repeal of sales taxes on the sale of religious items, eyeglasses, bottled water, newspapers and magazines delivered by mail, advertising and subsidies for Florida's professional sports teams.

It's significant that the tax adverse House would go this far and put out a list that of sales tax exemptions for review. But it will be a long, long session and it would be wrong for anyone to assume that most, or any, of these exemptions will be repealed by the time lawmakers call it quits in May. Many of the exemptions up for review were suggested by Democrats and could easily be killed by the GOP majority.

Despite change-over, uncounted ballots went up in 2008

Florida, which struggled with balloting problems in the 2000 presidential election, switched virtually all voting to paper ballots and optical scanners for the 2008 election.

A new study has found, however, that twice as many ballots were rejected as invalid in 2008 as in 2004. Read more about the study here at the N.Y. Times.

Delving into the numbers, what's interesting is the wide range of "no valid votes" by county. Several urban counties that switched from touchscreen machines to optical scan machines had rates much higher than the overall statewide total of .75 percent.

Miami-Dade County, for example, had 9,293 ballots that were ruled invalid for the presidential election or a rate of 1.06 percent. Broward County had 5,975 ballots ruled invalid for a rate of .81 percent, Palm Beach County had 4,357 invalid ballots for a rate of .73 percent and Pinellas County had 5,419 invalid ballots for rate of 1.16 percent.

Interestingly enough, for all its well publicized problems, Hillsborough County had 2,671 invalid ballots for a rate of .52 percent.

Ten things to know about Crist's budget

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist outlined his budget recommendations to state lawmakers on Friday - and most of the initial coverage focused on Crist's decision to utilize billions in expected federal stimulus money to shore up the $66.5 billion spending plan.

But there's a quite a lot more to Crist's proposed budget than just his decision to utilize federal money. Here's a rundown of some other items worth noting.

1. Health insurance: The biggest perk in state government is left unchanged under Crist's budget proposal. Crist recommend spending $13.1 million to keep health insurance premiums for state workers at their present level. But beyond that, Crist is keeping intact the free health insurance that state lawmakers and thousands of top ranking state workers receive.

2. School recognition grants: Despite the fact that Crist got criticized by George P. Bush last weekend, the Republican governor decided to keep intact funding for one of the key elements of former Gov. Jeb Bush's A+ education reforms. He has set aside $206.7 million for the program that rewards schools that show learning gains based primarily on results from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. It won't take long for Democrats, many of whom who praised Crist for his budget proposal, to start questioning why the Legislature should fund this program during a fiscal crisis. The GOP will assert that getting rid of this program will hurt teachers since much of the money winds up as bonuses.

3. Sweetener for the U.S. Sugar deal: Crist has included $5 million in his economic development funding recommendations to be used for "areas impacted by the South Florida Water Management District's acquisition of land from the U.S. Sugar Corporation. Impacted areas include Hendry and Glades County and the communities of Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee."