- April 19, 2024
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What should the state of Florida spend more money on this coming year? What should it cut?
Sen. Travis Hutson and Rep. Paul Renner — who's been selected to became Florida House speaker in November 2022, provided that he's reelected — discussed possibilities for the coming year's budget on Flagler Broadcasting's Free For All Friday program Oct. 15.
This past year, Renner said, "We got a whole lot of reform done from a policy standpoint; we were able to make a lot of investments in infrastructure, from a budget standpoint."
The legislators expected good things in the coming year's budget — but there is a caveat.
"Our budget looks great this year in terms of the dollars we're getting, but they're non-recurring dollars, so they're one-time spends," Hutson said. "So the organizations that want to go recurring to make sure they have that money for hopefully ever, that's a hard ask for us this year just because those dollars aren't there."
The non-recurring nature of the money means it can't be used for things like adding permanent staff positions.
"That's not the budget that we're in," Renner said. "But what that means is that it's an opportunity to look at infrastructure-type things, things that are capital-type projects that are longterm assets that benefit us over 10, 20, 30 years."
The state is trying to repair COVID-19's impact on the economy, Renner said, and did a good job last year of placing money back into its reserves. Now, he said, infrastructure needs attention.
Asked whether it would be hard to support Flagler County's request for state grant funding to build a new library in Bunnell, Renner spoke about weighing the library proposal against potentially more pressing needs.
"I think we have to at some level look at the world we live in today," Renner said, noting that people can now buy books with one click. "We have a brand new community center in Palm Coast — which is delightful and it's very nice and a lot of people use it; it's good that we have public spaces like that — but we have to make sure that we're looking at reality in the 21st century."
The library proposal has topped a state grant list for six years in a row, but the state has opted not to fund the grant each year, so the county hasn't received the money. This year, funding for the new library branch is at the top of the Flagler County government's list of requests to the state.
But at the state level, Renner said, there are other significant needs: Are the health department's needs, for instance, less important than the proposed new library?
"That, I would say to you, is the important thing when you come to the budget ... is, 'compared to what?'" Renner said. "... I think the job of a legislator is to say, 'How do we order those priorities?'"
In terms of education funding, Hutson and Renner said, legislators are trying to even out the gap between what counties contribute in tax dollars for education and what they get back from the state, which collects the money and reallocates it to districts.
For years, Flagler County has been a donor county, contributing more tax dollars for education than are returned to it. The district has been critical of the state's "district cost differential," the formula the state uses to determine how much each district receives.
"So the question is, can we perhaps narrow that range ... where it's little closer to, you send a dollar, you get a dollar," Renner said.
Asked about Flagler Schools' proposal to roughly double construction impact fees to prevent school overcrowding, Renner was critical. He noted that increases in property values have raised tax revenue for local government entities, including school districts.
"It seems like no matter whether it's feast or famine, there's always a crisis, there's always a need for more money, and I just think we need to take a step back and ask some tough questions before we go and approve a doubling, in this case, of impact fees," he said.
Renner was also wary of directing too much money toward Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing arm.
"I have news for everybody listening: The state of Florida is not a secret," Renner said. "We don't have to beg and cajole and spend money to beg people to come to the state of Florida and spend time here."
Money used for that, he said, is money that will not be spent on the health department, schools, infrastructure or land conservation, while being taken from taxpayers.
The Senate, Hutson said, has been more supportive of Visit Florida than has the House. After the program faced elimination last year, he said, it was forced to undertake reforms.
Both legislators were optimistic about Flagler's potential to shape its own future.
"We can actually write that story: It's not too late," Renner said. "You go to places like Miami-Dade, where everybody's complaining about traffic ... and it's difficult, because they're so hemmed in, they're so dense, that they've kind have set their destiny. ... If we're thoughtful, we can design the community that we want, the future that we want, and I think we're on a great track.
