Legislative Affairs : Budget Status Report - Week #1 :

Budget Status Report - Week #1

Sandra Wilson, March 7, 2008

This week the House and Senate passed their special appropriations bills to further reduce the current year budget.  With revenue estimates continuing to drop, the House and Senate reviewed agency and Governor recommendations for some general cuts out of the 4% hold back in agencies’ spending.  From the fiscal year 2007/08 budget, FWC identified about $3.2 million across-the-board for consideration.  The House and Senate took $2.1 million.  Both the House and the Senate bills were in agreement with regard to FWC’s budget and there were no changes to it during the conference which began Thursday and extended into today. 

The final conference bill will be available early next week for vote.

The Senate bill (SB2500) can be viewed at this site:
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/session/2008/Senate/bills/billtext/pdf/s2500e1.pdf
FWC starts with line item 598 on page 66.

The House bill (HB7009) can be viewed at this site:
http://flhouse.gov/Sections/Documents/loaddoc.aspx?FileName=h7009e1.pdf&DocumentType=Bill&BillNumber=7009&Session=2008
FWC starts with line item 598 on page 66.

There are no positions cut in the House & Senate bills.  The breakdown of the $2.1 million reduction by division is as follows:

        $392,196   Law Enforcement
        $758,072   Habitat and Species Conservation
        $  65,373   Hunting and Game Management
        $  92,249   Freshwater Fisheries Management
        $  96,774   Marine Fisheries Management
        $432,406   Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
        $282,411   Administrative Offices

Next week the House and Senate will complete their work on the current year cuts and launch into the difficult task of identifying much deeper cuts for fiscal year 2008/09.  The Revenue Estimating Conference will meet March 11; it is anticipated to show revenues are still declining and projected to get worse before they get better.  There will have to be significant cuts and/or fee increases if the State is to maintain the balanced budget required by law.

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