Around 11:15 p.m. Monday, as the deadline for getting a deal on the state budget drew closer, Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, brought to order a joint House-Senate negotiating committee hammering out the final details of a spending plan.
Shortly after the meeting began, he recognized Jamie DeLoach --- the top staff member for the Senate General Government Appropriations Subcommittee --- to explain the first of several offers that would be swapped back and forth between the two sides. It was an offer on the fine print of the environmental portion of the budget.
"On line 1: House modified language, based on funding decisions related to the agricultural best management practice," DeLoach said.
That was all the verbal explanation lawmakers would get of a provision that spelled out how the state would spend more than $12 million in taxpayer money.
Over the course of a meeting that lasted about half an hour, running almost until midnight, Lee and House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran would slog through 14 offers totaling 126 pages, a final flurry of paper that finished work on a nearly $78.7 billion spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1.
Compromises on language and funding amounts were swapped. Rarely was more description given than DeLoach gave on the first line of the environmental fine print. When it had ended, Lee and Corcoran had agreed to roughly $1.3 billion in state spending during that meeting alone and had approved language instructing state agencies how to spend millions more.
One of the most controversial decisions in the meeting was the agreement to spend $301 million in last-minute additions to the budget through "supplemental funding initiatives."
"Members, before you we have a joint work product on public education capital outlay, PECO," Lee said, talking about almost $474.4 million in education construction money. "Also before you, we have a list on the Senate supplemental funding initiatives. And Chair Corcoran, you're recognized, sir."
"Members, also before you is the House's supplemental funding initiatives," said Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes.
And the meeting moved on. Just like that, lawmakers had essentially agreed to 84 Senate projects totaling $150 million and 110 House recommendations weighing in at $151 million. Some of the items had been jettisoned during earlier negotiations, as the two chambers tried to hammer out an agreement on the spending plan; others showered money on pork projects or state programs that leaders simply decided should receive more tax dollars.
For example, the Senate put another $12 million into a program that helps the families of children with disabilities pay for educational services --- a program that has been a key priority of Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. The chamber poured $10 million more into Early Steps, a separate program for children with developmental disabilities or delays. A downtown project for the University of Central Florida --- something of a pet project for Gardiner --- received $5 million from the Senate fund, on top of the $10 million it received in PECO money.
The House did much the same. After lawmakers agreed to slash payments to farmers who help the state control water flows around the Everglades from $28 million to almost $13.7 million on Sunday, the House poured about $13.7 million more into the program on Monday --- returning the total to nearly where it had been before the reduction. Another $6.9 million went to pre-eminence funding for higher education. A telehealth initiative in North Brevard County --- the county that is in part represented by House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island --- received $121,629.
When the meeting was over, lawmakers defended their work to reporters still trying to sort through the deluge of documents. Corcoran offered a spirited defense of the Legislature after a special session in which the House and Senate debated health-care reform ideas in addition to the budget.
"This is the way government should work," he boasted.
To be clear, lawmakers have taken steps to open up the famously opaque budget process over the past several years. In the wake of former House Speaker Ray Sansom's resignation in 2009 amid a controversy about budget fine print known as "proviso," House and Senate negotiators began sharing those provisions in open meetings --- though the provisions are often described much as DeLoach did.
But lawmakers still often use phone calls to discuss the budget process, circumventing rules designed to make sure so-called "conference committee" meetings are held in public. After some progress has been made, the two sides will emerge for a public meeting to trade offers before heading back behind closed doors.
Corcoran also pointed out Monday evening that the House has returned to an old practice of asking members to put their requests for certain projects in writing, in documents that are publicly available.
"We're back to where if you want something in the budget, you have to own it, you have to submit what that is, you have to give the details of the project, and that has been out there from the get-go, and most of you guys have asked for those sheets and we've given them to you," he said.
"So do you have the request sheets for the things that were in the supplemental offers tonight?" a reporter responded.
"I'd have to go through which specific issue you have," Corcoran said. "But I think there is no way that you couldn't say that the stuff we've been talking about has been out there from the very get-go."
Explaining that he has six children and it was 11:45 p.m., Corcoran would eventually excuse himself from a media availability with Lee --- answering one more question and then walking away. Lee fielded questions for a few more minutes.
Among the questions he answered: No, some lawmakers journeying to Miami for former Gov. Jeb Bush's announcement that he would run for president didn't delay things.
"This is our budget. We worked very, very hard to get here. I'm going to stand here and own it. We did the very, very best we could. We were as transparent as we could be. But the fact that members were down in Miami, as easy as it would be for me to scapegoat on that, is not the reason that we're here at 11 or 12 o'clock at night," he said.
A few moments later, he added: "In some respects, I might argue that made it easier," Lee said, drawing knowing laughter from a few of the reporters and himself. "Because there were less distractions this afternoon than there might have otherwise been."
Some outside groups weren't exactly in a laughing mood about the process Monday --- and the final meeting.
"It's really not anything new," Kurt Wenner, vice president of research for Florida TaxWatch, a Tallahassee-based think tank, said Tuesday. "We've seen it before. It's just a culmination of the budget conference which really isn't an open process. I understand that there has to be some behind-the-scenes negotiations there at the end or else we'd never get a budget, but that's why Florida TaxWatch believes that you shouldn't be adding new projects during the budget conference."
Wenner's group pointed out that lawmakers fell short of Gov. Rick Scott's call to cut taxes by $673 million --- instead passing a tax cut of $372.4 million for the coming year, about $300 million short of Scott's goal.
"Given the late addition of so many new projects without increased revenue projections from state economists, it is clear that the Legislature had funding for tax cuts all along," Dominic Calabro, president and chief executive officer of the group, said in a statement issued Tuesday.
