During his campaign for governor Rick Scott sharply attacked Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink for some of her budget proposals and said that they would be too expensive. Scott then quipped that Sink was practicing "Obama math." That led to Sink's own rejoinder that she didn't know what Obama math was even though she had been a math major at Wake Forest University.
In the next few weeks, Scott, however, will have to show how his math adds up.
Scott must hand over his own budget recommendations to the Florida Legislature by Feb. 4 - or about a month before the 2011 session. The tight time schedule is one of the reasons that many people in Gov. Charlie Crist's budget office were given until next June to resign. Scott's team - led by Donna Arduin, the budget chief for former Gov. Jeb Bush - have already started working furiously on the proposal. Arduin has been given her own office on the 17th floor of the Capitol to help with the effort.
This budget proposal could be the key in determining how successful Scott will be during his first year in office. And it will be interesting to see how Scott will accomplish the budget goals he outlined during his campaign.
Math problem No. 1: Scott says in his "7-7-7" jobs plan that he could save nearly $1.4 billion by requiring employees to start contributing for their own pensions (pg. 12). But as explained in this story in the Herald-Tribune the state of Florida is only paying slightly less than $700 million now on behalf of its employees. The rest of the money flowing into the Florida Retirement System actually comes from counties, school districts, sheriffs and other local governments.
So how does Scott make up the difference? One possible explanation is that he will use employee contributions from school districts - namely teachers - to help pay for the property tax cut he also wants to offer. Scott has proposed slashing school property taxes by 19 percent, but he says he would do it without cutting funding to education. So if you ask teachers to start paying for their own pensions, which would reduce their salary, is that, or is that not, a cut?
When pushed this week to explain how Scott planned to get $1.4 billion in savings, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll said it would be revealed in Scott's budget plan. "Stay tuned,'' she said.
Math problem No. 2: Scott's team has said that the governor-elect plans to aggressively move ahead with his school reform proposals in the coming year. Scott's plan got some attention at the time he announced it, but there was plenty of coverage following his appearance Thursday at a rally of groups who help provide corporate income tax scholarships - or "vouchers" - to low-income families. Scott again repeated his call for offering every student in Florida the opportunity of going to the school of their choice.
It has been previously noted that Scott wants to cut the corporate income tax while potentially expanding the scholarships, which are funded to a large extent by the tax. There's also legal implications to Scott's plan that may not be solved without a constitutional amendment given past Supreme Court rulings on vouchers.
But on top of that there remains the practical question of how much it would cost to expand vouchers and virtual education beyond current use. (Although it's important to remember that legislators this past year authorized the expansion of the one of the state's main voucher programs.) There will be some argument that you can save money by moving children out of public schools into private ones - but that depends on how much funding is authorized and whether or not the state plans to pick up the complete cost or merely subsidize part of it. Plus, there is the cost of helping pay for students already in private schools or students who are home schooled. The latest figures from the Department of Education show more than 62,000 children are home-schooled and more than 313,000 are in private schools.
Math problem No. 3: The existing budget shortfall - which is not a "deficit" - is now moving ever higher than previously forecast. This week brought news of higher than expected expenditures in Medicaid, lower property tax values for schools (although that dropped the cost of Scott's property tax cut plan slightly) and lower-than-anticipated sales tax collections over the last three months. Combined this pushes the expected budget shortfall to more than $3 billion.
Some of the projected shortfall is due to the loss of federal stimulus funds and continued growth in Medicaid but the shortfall is also dependent on legislative action. Lawmakers can whittle down this shortfall if they decide to forego some expenses such as buying environmentally-sensitive land or refusing to maintain student funding at current levels. Scott has suggested his own ways to deal with the budget shortfall, including cuts in the state prison system and the elimination of 5 percent of the state workforce (which is already the leanest and cheapest in the nation according to a new report from the Department of Management Services.)
Still Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, was cautious when asked this week how he plans to fill the shortfall while at the same time going along with Scott's plan to cut property taxes and corporate income taxes. Alexander said one big place to look for savings will be Medicaid. Legislative leaders and Scott agree on making changes to the health care program, although there remains questions as to whether or not the federal government would sign off on them.
But then Alexander said that while he would like to put money back into Floridians pockets he said it won't be an easy task to balance the budget, saying that lawmakers have already made a lot of cuts the last few years. He also then made sure to say that the campaign is over and now it's time to govern.
"I would hope that all of us take a deep breath and move away from campaign rhetoric and start focusing on how do we make the best decisions possible to move our state forward," Alexander said.
"I would hope that all of us take a deep breath and move away from campaign rhetoric and start focusing on how do we make the best decisions possible to move our state forward," Alexander said.
I think that means, "don't listen to what we promised you before we got elected. We're in now and will do as we please."
Posted by: Betty A Duffy | December 13, 2010 at 01:00 PM