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Across the state budget, now expected to weigh in at nearly $83 billion, negotiating committees worked to hammer out their remaining differences to beat a looming deadline. Because of a constitutionally required 72-hour "cooling off" period, the spending plan has to be finished by Tuesday to finish the legislative session on May 5, as scheduled.

The House announced it wouldn't meet as a full body Monday as leaders try to negotiate final details.

Elsewhere, House and Senate negotiators agreed to reduce Medicaid hospital rates by about $651 million, but the proposal did not account for money that hospitals are expected to receive through the Low Income Pool program.

Gov. Rick Scott recently announced that $1.5 billion would be available through the so-called LIP program, which sends additional money to hospitals that care for large numbers of poor and uninsured patients. State and federal health officials continue to negotiate how the money could be used.

On the environment, the Senate was backing away from at least some of its funding of Florida Forever, a land conservation proposal.

"In order to do the things we need to do in South Florida, with the St. Johns River, all throughout the state, with Lake Apopka, tough choices had to be made," said Sen. Rob Bradley, the Fleming Island Republican who chairs the Senate's environmental budget committee.

Meanwhile, complaints about transparency continued to dog the budget process.

In comments to reporters Friday, Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, said House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, was responsible for mingling discussions of policy issues with negotiations about the outline of the budget that lawmakers are now filling in.

Those discussions are not always separate, but Latvala said the ties this year were almost unprecedented, and seemed to indicate it was hypocritical of Corcoran, who has promised to clean up the operations of the House.

"I haven't seen to the extent that we've seen it this year, of deciding so many issues as a part of the budget process," Latvala said. "I've never seen that before. But that's driven strictly by the guy that wants transparency, from the other end down there."

Corcoran's office declined to comment on Latvala's remarks.

Rep. Loranne Ausley, D-Tallahassee, also lashed out at the behind-the-scenes negotiations between Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart.

"All the lofty speeches we heard about the new era of openness and transparency that would be brought to the budget process this year were apparently nothing more than meaningless words," Ausley said in a statement. "Instead, the priorities of two people are taking precedence over the priorities of the people of Florida."