With both chambers of the Legislature passing their initial budgets last week, the House spent early Tuesday evening paving the way to meet with the Senate in conference to hammer out a final budget.
Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said the House was following a procedural roadmap that would pave the way for conferencing with the Senate.
This will get us into a conference posture, he said.
That line was echoed several times as the House took up a number of bills from the Senate and quickly passed them with almost no debate.
Some senators wandered over to the House and took to the floor to confer with representatives. These included incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, and Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lakes Wales.
The House agreed with the Senate in renaming the current Department of Management Services to the Department of Personnel Management; permitting nonviolent inmates two months of grant time for completing their GEDs while incarcerated; reducing service charges for license plates and mobile home stickers from $5 to $2.50; reducing the license tax surcharge from $5.50 to $2; forming a procedure to create corporate license plates; consolidating the Division of Food Safety and the Division of Dairy Industry; killing the $7.50 shoreline fishing fee for some saltwater fishers; expanding the duties of the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology; moving the Department of Citrus from Lakeland to Bartow; and encouraging the state to use electronic deposits.
There was little opposition. Most of the measures passed unanimously.
The House and the Senate will confer on the budget next week. The initial House budget came in at $67.2 billion, while the Senate budget stood at $69.5 billion.
Kevin Derby can be reached at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com, or at (904) 521-3722.
