Gov. Rick Scott will be leaving Tallahassee again on Thursday to sign the state budget.
Sources told Sunshine State News Monday that Scott plans to head to The Villages, the sprawling retirement community in Central Florida, for a 12:45 p.m. signing ceremony.
Earlier reports had the governor returning to the small Lake County town of Eustis, where he announced his budget proposal in early February. But simmering party resentment, expressed in an e-mail, apparently scuttled a homecoming there.
Amid friction among the Lake County Republican Party, Scott and the tea groups that had hosted him, the governor reportedly turned to the Villages.
Brian Burgess, Scott's chief spokesman, said, "In keeping with our outsider tradition, the governor will sign the budget outside of Tallahassee on Thursday." Not confirming the destination, Burgess said Scott would be "at least 2 1/2 hours" outside of Tallahassee.
At February's pre-Legislature event, hosted by the North Lake Tea Party, Scott laid out a blueprint for $5 billion in spending cuts. Tea party and patriot groups, which packed Eustis' First Baptist Church, enthusiastically cheered on the governor they had helped elect just three months earlier.
In his inaugural $66 billion plan, which he called "Florida's first jobs budget," Scott took aim at public-sector spending and publicly financed retirement funds. He also called for $2 billion in property- and corporate-tax cuts -- portions of which the Republican-led Legislature approved.
But lawmakers didn't deliver all of Scott's proposed reductions this spring, and the governor said he plans to achieve additional savings through line-item cuts in the Legislature's $69.7 billion budget.
Having spent an "unbelievable" number of hours scrubbing the budget, Scott said last week, "I can tell you that there will be additional savings."
Meantime, internal GOP infighting appeared to have wrecked the planned Eustis revival.
Complaining that the local Republican Party apparatus was left out of the loop last February, state committeeman Joe Rudderow sent out an e-mail, stating:
"When Governor Scott came to Lake County to announce his budget earlier in the year, he did so without notifying the state committee representatives or the county chairman. To say it was an embarrassment would be putting it lightly."
Concluding with a call for unity that appeared to be too little, too late, Rudderow urged party faithful to get behind Scott.
"We need to make every effort to show up and lend our support. ... This is very important for our Lake County Republican Party. If we expect others to follow protocol, we must do the same," he wrote.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
