Florida Lawmakers Need to Bridge Budget Differences

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Some of those differences could be an illusion. The Senate budget includes $607.8 million in money for hospital aid from the federal government that might not materialize. The House doesn’t have that funding in the budget, saying it would be irresponsible to depend on it.

But there are substantive differences as well. Both chambers would reduce hospital Medicaid reimbursements, but the House’s cuts would be much deeper than the Senate’s.

DEATH PENALTY

The state’s budget has become part of the battle over State Attorney Aramis Ayala, elected last year as the top prosecutor in Orange and Osceola counties, who recently announced she would not pursue the death penalty in capital cases.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have proposed a $1.3 million cut to Ayala’s office. However, senators have worked out a compromise to assuage the concerns of some critics of the cut by restoring $569,277 and six positions to Ayala’s budget, while still providing some additional funding for another circuit that Scott has ordered to handle death-penalty cases from Ayala’s jurisdiction.