State Agencies Prioritize For 10% Cuts To Budget

By JEROME R. STOCKFISCH and CATHERINE DOLINSKI The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 9, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - The demise of a popular antidrug program for children. Less money to care for adults with disabilities. No funds for a Tampa Alzheimer's research center, and more offenders released from state custody.

That's a potential picture of Florida if the state forced its departments to slash their budgets by 10 percent, an exercise that Gov. Charlie Crist ordered in the wake of the downturn in the state's economy.

Analysts expect the state to take in about $1 billion less this fiscal year than they had originally anticipated, prompting a special legislative session next month at which lawmakers will reduce the $71.9 billion budget they passed in the spring.

Crist has warned department heads they will face at least 4 percent cuts this fiscal year and next. He ordered agencies to propose a 10 percent hit to help lawmakers see where department priorities lie. The proposed cuts were due Wednesday, though at least one agency said it had been granted an extension until noon today.

Getting out the eraser wasn't easy.

Painful Cuts

Education, human services, health and transportation capture the lion's share of the state budget - 77 percent - and those departments would most likely see the most painful cuts.

"Any reductions are going to result potentially in services not provided," said Melissa Jaacks, assistant secretary at the Department of Children & Families, which was asked to identify about $213 million in cuts.

The department tried hard to prioritize cuts to administration first, Jaacks said. But it's impossible, she said, to reach the target cuts without chipping away at programs and services.

The first layers of cuts in DCF's near-complete proposal provided Wednesday include reductions to mental health programs and abuse investigations.

Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of the Florida's Children First advocacy group, said she feared that cuts to contract administration of private, community-based care of foster children would result in less oversight by the state.

"The need for more oversight and contract management is so much more evident now than even a couple of months ago," she said, alluding to recent news accounts about foster children who have suffered in the state's system.

The department also proposes to return $1.2 million it received from a trust fund to train child welfare workers. The money, Jaacks explained, exceeds what the department is legally authorized to spend.

Rosenberg said she wishes the state would allow DCF to pour that money into more training. Recent cases such as that of Courtney Clark, the Pinellas County foster child who disappeared last year and turned up at the scene of a murder in Wisconsin, underscore the need, she said.

To reach its necessary reduction, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities proposed cutting more than $75.7 million from payments to private providers who care for the developmentally disabled.

"Substantial disruption of services provided to the vulnerable individuals served by this Agency could result," the agency warned in its proposal.

Rep. Bill Galvano, who spearheaded efforts to reform programs at the troubled agency this year, said he hopes fellow lawmakers remember the delicate, long-negotiated balance of changes that are just now starting to take place at the agency.

"This is the problem when you try to do cuts by assigning a standard percentage of each part of the budget," said Galvano, R-Bradenton, who chairs the House Healthy Families Committee. "My preference would be to recognize that there are services within the health and human services budget that make it more difficult to cut than, perhaps, a transportation and economic development budget."

The budget exercise also yanks $20 million in annual funding to the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center and Research Institute at the University of South Florida. The Department of Elder Affairs said it had to look at options that would have the least effect on direct services to elders, and said the Institute can generate funding through other state and federal grants. However, during the spring's legislative session when the state considered cutting nearly this much, Byrd officials warned the impact could be great, making it difficult to recruit top scientists.

'Any Cut Is A Huge Loss'

Ten percent cuts by the Department of Health would short county health departments by $49.4 million, according to a draft proposal. On a statewide basis, the DOH would cut $9.2 million in children's medical service, $5.9 million in family health, $2.7 million in disease control, and $13.1 million in statewide public health, among other reductions. The department is submitting its formal proposal to Crist today.

"Any cut is a huge loss for the people we serve," Health spokesman Kevin Cate said.

A draft plan from the Agency for Health Care Administration would force pregnant women on Medicaid to receive approval before having an elective Caesarian section. Other cuts would lower Medicaid payments to nursing homes and hospitals.

Schools Could Lose $720 Million

The state Department of Education proposal had not been made public late Wednesday. But a 10 percent cut to the education operating budget, as suggested in a draft version, would subtract $720 million from schools.

Connie Milito, lobbyist for Hillsborough County schools, said the district has taken measures to operate within a 4 percent budget reduction. "The state knew this was coming, and we've been forward about it for a while," she said.

The more drastic scenario is a different story, said Yvonne Lyons, executive director of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association. "It depends where the cut would come - if it's not something absolutely essential to education or the classroom, then it's doable. If we were overallocated, that would be different, but that's not the case."

Proposed cuts to the $8 billion DOT budget wouldn't necessarily deprive the Tampa Bay area. The largest transportation cutbacks would target small counties.

Jim Sebesta, a former state senator from St. Petersburg with a reputation as dean of transportation issues, said one line item that concerned him for the Tampa Bay area was the potential loss of $10 million of the $11.5 million "road fund" that economic development officials dangle before businesses that want to locate, remain or expand within Florida.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporters Catherine Dolinski and Jerome R. Stockfisch can be reached at (850) 222-8382, cdolinski@tampatrib.com or jstockfisch@tampatrib.com.