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Governor Rick Scott Cuts Additional $615.3 Million from State Budget

May 26, 2011 | WMFE - Florida Governor Rick Scott signed off on a roughly $69 billion budget after vetoing more than $615.3 million worth of items. The governor took the budget signing to The Villages, a community with large Republican and tea party populations.

Scott called the programs he cut “short-sighted, frivolous, wasteful, short-term special-interest projects,” and said that money should go elsewhere in the budget. “I’m sure most Floridians, like I do, believe that spending $250,000 on education materials is more important than spending a quarter of a million dollars learning how to catch rainwater,” he said, referring to a proposed environmental program.

Other items cut from the state budget include repair and construction money for state universities, the Florida Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, the Veterans’ Homeless Support Group, public broadcasting, and grants to the Florida Small Business Development Center.

Cuts from projects in Central Florida include funds for the redevelopment of the Pine Hills and Parramore communities, restoration of the Saint Johns River, the Healthy Start Coalition of Orange County, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in Lake Nona, and Health Care Centers for the Homeless in Osceola, Orange, and Seminole counties. 

But state House and Senate leaders hinted that some of those cuts may be slated for a legislative override. In a statement, Senate President Mike Haridopolos lawmakers will review the vetoes.  

House majority leader Carlos Lopez Cantera said he’s displeased with the governor’s criticism of the legislature’s education funding plan. He says lawmakers gave more money to public schools than the governor did in his original budget recommendation.

 

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