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Legislative Affairs : Budget Status Report - Week #7 : |
Budget Status Report - Week #7 |
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Budget conferees were named last Wednesday and on Thursday, the House and Senate officially opened the budget conference. The conference is made up of various joint House and Senate committees focusing on specific subject areas. Our budget will be handled by the Senate General Government Appropriations and the House Environment & Natural Resources Joint Budget Conference Committee. They did not meet this week; however they are expected to meet Monday and Tuesday to work out budget differences. Anything left unsettled after April 22 will be “bumped up” to the big appropriations committee chairs in the House and Senate. As noted in previous reports, the appropriations bills are available online at: FWC issues start with line item 1946 and run through line 2058. The conference issues remain the same as reported last week: Vessel registration fee adjustments vs LE positions cut House Bill 5001 cuts 66 FWC law enforcement positions and $3.3 million in order to reduce state General Revenue (GR) spending. It also cuts the $2 million marine mammal care budget which includes $1.15 million for manatee rehabilitation and $850,000 for UF marine mammal veterinary support. HB 5081 then redirects the savings from the marine mammal care cut to be paid to GR for the next five years. The funding source for this is documentary stamp tax revenue. The Senate proposes a 55% adjustment in vessel registration fees based on the Consumer Price Index (SB 1286) in order to avoid having to cut law enforcement positions and marine mammal care. The Senate would use the additional revenue for the following:
Other Reductions The House bill cuts the $210,000 alligator trapper stipend and redirects the savings to GR for the next five years (HB 5081). The Senate cuts three positions and $183,737 (one in Habitat & Species Conservation and two in the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute). We have placed a compromise offer on the table to fund shift salaries rather than cut the positions. This offer would release more GR than the cuts, so we hope it will serve to save the positions. Fund Shifts Fund shifts change the revenue source supporting activities and are often used to take GR from an agency without having to cut an activity. The House and Senate each had differing fund shift actions for FWC in their bills. These will be worked out further in conference and include:
Requests The FWC law enforcement retention pay issue will not be decided until the very last part of the budget conference. This is normal procedure for all pay actions. The Commission, agency staff, and the PBA are continuing our lobby efforts and will do so through conference. The Senate funded our $360,022 commercial license system re-write, the House did not. The House fully funded our $3.4 million Gopher Tortoise conservation issue (including 4 positions), the Senate funded half of it. The House picked up our license plate sales issue and two boating safety grant positions, the Senate did not; however the Senate did support 26 grant-funded positions (half of our request). Both sides supported our artificial reef issue; however, the House provided an additional $1.1 million. The House fully funded our mitigation park land acquisition, but not Florida Forever. The Senate funded Florida Forever, but cut the mitigation park land acquisition by $5 million. Other The House reduced our transfer coming from the Department of Environmental Protection’s Coastal Protection Trust Fund (CPTF) by $1,157,326. This has the effect of shifting an equivalent amount of our law enforcement spending from CPTF to license fees. In addition, the House takes a one-time cash sweep from the Marine Resources Conservation Trust Fund of $1.93 million. Invasive Plant Management Transfer A number of substantive bills are traveling with the appropriations bills in both houses because they have an effect on the budget. These have been referred to the budget conference to be decided along with all the other budget issues. One of these, House Bill 5079, contains a provision that transfers the Bureau of Invasive Plant Management from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to FWC, including 29 positions, a $44 million budget and a trust fund. This bureau is responsible for directing the control, eradication and regulation of noxious aquatic weeds and invasive exotic plants on public lands and waters. This week staff concluded meetings with DEP and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to develop statutory change language that will best support the transfer, should it occur. We supplied this information to the House for further consideration during the budget conference. The following charts are our side-by-side comparisons. The first one shows conference issues only and the second includes our full budget request.
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