House leaders focused on the future impact of their plan, which they said would turn the shortfalls in future years into surpluses. House Appropriations Chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, underscored a decision to slash about a quarter of $700 million of budget projects that were wedged into spending plans by past lawmakers and draw on year-after-year funding.
“For the first time in at least my time up here, we’ve gone after recurring projects and member projects and have eliminated a substantial amount of them,” he said.
But many of those ideas seem destined to run into opposition in the Senate. The House would slash the budgets of colleges and universities, despite Senate President Joe Negron’s focus on boosting higher education in the state. Cuts in health care are also likely to prove controversial in the upper chamber.
And the House and Senate remain divided by whether to roll back school property-tax rates to make sure homeowners don’t face larger tax bills even if the value of their properties increase.
