The Fine Print

Budget sleuthing, smoke and mirrors (Part 1)

In what may seem like a completely different era the Florida Legislature was required to put some things in the public domain about how things wound up in the budget.

For many years legislators were required to at least document some evidence of a request for an earmark, or what was known as the "Community Budget Issue Request System." Legislators were required to fill out forms explaining a request a funding. One example: In 2008 Rep. Will Weatherford requested $3 million for a domestic violence center along with requests for nine other projects.

When the Great Recession caused a massive downturn in the economy there was a decision made by legislative leaders to shut down this effort.

"With the further decline in state revenues, it is my desire to avoid creating unrealistic funding expecations,'' wrote Senate President Jeff Atwater in a 2009 memo.

But even though the Florida Legislature has a budget surplus to work with this year there has been no move to return to this type of tracking system. Back in 2010 Democratic candidate for Chief Financial Officer Loranne Ausley suggested requiring the reinstatement of the system so that "politicians must own their pork spending."

As this story notes - there's no shortage of hometown projects in the roughly $75 billion budget that legislators are working on right now.

The question is how the project got there and whether members of the public and press can deduce the origins of something.

Let's take just one project: $10 million for the "FSU College of Engineering" that has been in the Senate budget a couple of weeks now.

This project - along with $3 million in operational money pushed by Sen. John Thrasher - caused a firestorm on the Senate floor on Thursday. Thrasher acknowledged that the $10 million was for a separate building on the Florida State University campus to help transition to a new engineering school apart from the current joint school operated with Florida A&M University.

FAMU officials strongly oppose any move to separate the two schools and several legislators said it hearkened back to a time when FAMU's law school was shuttered in the '60s and the funding was shifted to a new law school at FSU. Thrasher defended the move by noting the declining enrollment in the FAMU part of the program.

Traditionally it is up to the Senate and House appropriations chairman to be responsible for placing construction items that are part of what is known as the Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) list in the budget.

When asked Sen. Joe Negron, the Senate budget chief, initially said that the money for the school was on the PECO list given to the Florida Legislature by the Board of Governors, the appointed panel that oversees the state university system.

"I believe the Board of Governors had okayed consideration of that request,'' Negron said.

Then when asked if the board had put in for a stand-alone FSU facility Negron said: "It came from us having a certain amount of fixed capital to spend and looking at all the potential places" and deciding to put it toward the stand-alone facility.

"I think it's good policy," Negron continued. "I think we are going to take a good engineering school and turn it into two great schools."

So the question remains: Did the Board of Governors suggest funding for this project?

No.

The Board of Governors submitted a PECO list that calls for spending $30 million over the next two years for the construction of a new building to sit next to the two existing buildings that now make up the college. The House budget includes $15 million for the joint facility.

Furthermore a committee of the board last October was given a presentation on why a new $36 million building at the joint campus is needed.

The presentation prepared by FAMU & FSU officials contended that if funding were delayed there would be a "loss of propsective talented engineering students due to inadequate and outdated educational facilities including the current use of several temporary and dilapidated trailers/portables."

That's right - they are using portables at the current joint school.

Additionally the presentation states this: "The College has far outgrown its existing facilities. The College relies on outdated modular units to temporarily meet its space needs. Since the College is isolated from both main campuses it is difficult to share the resources of the libraries, auditorium, information and other student centered facilities."

State legislators changing the PECO list for universities is nothing new. It's how FSU got money to help build the University Center that now surrounds its football stadium. Legislative leaders have often used their clout to help universities in their own backyard.

But it also has led to some problems.

Atwater himself at the time defended the shutting down of the community budget system because he said it did not prevent the situation that happened when then-House budget chief Ray Sansom placed $6 million funding in the budget for his own hometown college for a project that turned out to be a hangar. 

Sansom wound up being investigated over the deal although charges were eventually dropped after the judge in the case ruled that testimony from a key witness could not be used.

In the immediate aftermath, however, Atwater helped institute a policy that required college and university officials to publicly testify before the Legislature about what projects they actually needed and wanted on the PECO list.

Budget staff called it the "PECO Parade."

And guess what? The Legislature didn't do it last year. It would be a fair guess to suggest they won't do it this year either.

Whose budget pork is it anyway?

This got some quick attention earlier this week but it merits a bit of discussion.

Florida legislative leaders announced that for the third year in a row that they won't allow fellow legislators to put in community budget requests -- or the Tallahassee version of earmarks.

The rationale from House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos was that the state's ongoing fiscal crisis means that allowing members to file in such requests would "create unrealistic funding expectations for the coming year."

There's no doubt that the coming year will be tough again. Lawmakers will head into the spring session with a projected budget shortfall that could range anywhere from $2.5 billion to as small as $828 million depending on what legislators decide to fund.A key factor is that chunks of the federal stimulus will drop out of the budget.

State law allows for community budget issue requests. This is a process where cities, counties as well as private and non-profit organizations can request funding for items like, oh, astroturf for a South Florida flag football league.

But local projects can still get funded without these community budget requests, even in tough budget years. There were several local projects that were placed in the state budget by powerful legislators during the 2010 session.

The only difference is that without the community budget requests it's much harder to figure out where they came from and who wanted them.

CBIR's as they are also known usually require a lawmaker to list the background of a project and even the names and phone numbers of those who are asking for the money. The item is also supposed to include whether it was requested by a state agency or has local matching money.

The one caveat, however, is that top leaders, including House speakers and Senate presidents rarely attach their name to CBIR's even though they wind up being instrumental in getting millions set aside to their own pet projects.

During the 2010 campaign season Democrat Loranne Ausley, a candidate for Chief Financial Officer, said that the Legislature should reinstate the system of requiring the community budget requests so that "politicians must own their pork spending." She ripped then Senate President Jeff Atwater for jettisoning community budget issue requests.

When asked about it this fall, Atwater was fairly dismissive of Ausley's ideas.

He noted that back in 2007 - the year that former Rep. Ray Sansom put in money for a $6 million hangar and the year that lawmakers put together a controversial bond deal for the First DCA Courthouse - that the Legislature did use the community budget requests but that things got in the budget anyway.

The hangar, of course, led eventually to Sansom's indictment while the courthouse continues to generate headlines.

Atwater contends the changes that lawmakers used during the last two sessions are superior. This included unveiling budget conforming bills in public meetings and forcing university officials to appear at a public hearing to make requests for construction dollars.

The question is whether or not Cannon or Haridopolos will retain these practices. The new Senate and House rules passed last week were silent on how lawmakers will handle the budget conferences during the 2011 session.

House and Senate staff have suggested that they will likely handle it as they did this past spring, but there's been no official word yet.

 

 

Democrat and CFO candidate says it's time to stop trusting lobbyists

The Democrat running for chief financial officer says it is time for Florida lawmakers to stop trusting lobbyists.

Loranne Ausley is blasting the Florida Legislature -- as well as GOP opponent and Senate President Jeff Atwater -- for failing to follow a law that requires the state to verify how much lobbyists are getting paid to influence legislators, the governor and others in Tallahassee.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported last December that the Legislature was not following a 2005 law meant to give citizens a better idea of how much money was flowing into the Capitol. Lobbyists have been required for four years to file reports listing how much they get paid -- but the state has relied on an "honor system" regarding these reports, despite the fact that state law calls for random audits.

"I think it's outrageous the Legislature and Jeff Atwater have refused to follow the law," Ausley said. "We need to clean up the pay-to-play culture in Tallahassee. We need to hold lobbyists and politicians accountable."

Brian Hughes, a campaign spokesman for Atwater, said instead of constantly criticizing the Legislature, Ausley should tell voters what she plans to do if she is elected.

The audit requirement was included in the 2005 law that also banned gifts to lawmakers from lobbyists. The GOP-controlled Legislature, however, has disagreed on how to carry out the audit requirement and raised concerns about the cost. Plus, hardly any accounting firms have been willing to take on the audit work.

Former Senate President Tom Lee, who pushed for the law, says there's "bipartisan" blame to go around.

Read the entire Herald-Tribune article here.