The legislative session is now on track to be completed on time Friday.
The House agreed Monday to a Senate plan to create a 12th state university, while the Senate settled on the House proposal on how to draw $300 million from the other 11. The agreements were among the final pieces of the approximately $70 billion state spending plan.
A complete fiscal plan will be fully unveiled Tuesday morning, allowing the required 72-hour waiting period before a final vote can be taken in both chambers and sent to Gov. Rick Scott for final approval.
Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, who heads the House Appropriations Committee, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said there's still work to do.
The document is expected to take about 16 hours to proof and print before being publicly released in a single document, Alexander said.
I expect well be working most of the night to make sure all of those things are correct, Alexander said.
The fiscal package doesnt ensure that legislators wont need to be called back for redistricting or any other issue, such as personal injury protection insurance reform.
The Senate had sought to have the $300 million come from undesignated reserves at each state university.
Under the plan approved Monday that was closer to the Houses initial offer, $150 million will come from reserves, $100 million from the base funding and $50 million from tuition.
Weve been going back and forth on that one and trying to find something that was reasonably simple and capture something treating them all the same, Alexander said.
Frank Brogan, chancellor of the State University System of Florida, called the tri-pronged, proportional approach to drawing money from the universities satisfactory.
I think everybody is reasonably satisfied that nobody is taking a worse beating than anybody else on the cut, Brogan said.
Florida State University -- because it has the largest undesignated reserves -- will face a $65.8 million hit, the highest, followed by the University of Central Florida at $52.6 million.
The schools may be able to get some of the money back by seeking tuition increases of up to 15 percent from the state Board of Governors.
Meanwhile, USF-Polytechnic in Lakeland will proceed toward becoming an independent university as of July 1, with $10 million worth of assurances in place so that current students will remain USF students as they work toward graduation at the Lakeland campus.
Alexander has been pushing for the split, having earlier claimed to have lost trust in the leadership of the Tampa-based university.
As part of a separate deal, senators also agreed to bump their insurance costs to the same as all other state employees.
A week ago, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, failed to get legislators to amend a bill to increase their health insurance costs to the same as other state employees.
But on Monday, the Senate agreed to include the increased monthly costs -- from $8.34 to $50 for individuals and from $30 to $180 for families -- on themselves, even if the House wasnt ready to make the change.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.
