The Florida House of Representatives embarked on its first full debate over the state budget on Friday, April 4. During more than five hours of debate, nearly 100 amendments were filed to HB 1789, the House budget bill. Of those amendments, nearly all of the ones filed by House Democrats failed.

With debate time running out Friday afternoon, House Majority Leader Marco Rubio, R-Miami, requested a floor action that automatically killed the final five amendments without them being heard.

Friday’s debate further illustrated the growing divide between the House and Senate over this year’s budget.

Highlights of the House budget include the following:

• It restores funding to keep the Florida State Library’s circulating collection in Tallahassee. (Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed moving the collection to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.)
• It funds $12,250,000 for the Governor’s Mentoring Initiative.
• It moves $642 million from statewide trust funds into the state’s General Revenue Fund.

The move to “raid” dedicated trust funds also includes sweeping $25 million from the Professional Regulation Trust Fund at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. This trust fund holds the licensure fees for nearly 23 professions, including CPAs. The impact on the Board of Accountancy’s portion of that trust fund is yet to be determined.

Rep. Bruce Kyle, R-Fort Myers, chairman of the House Budget Committee, noted that surplus trust fund dollars were being moved to meet the needs of the state and not to “secure the status of special interests.”

After five-and-a-half hours of debate, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, made a calm but serious announcement at 4 p.m. Byrd informed the House that he would be calling all 120 members of the House into a “committee of the whole” on Tuesday, April 8. This rather obscure legislative procedure was most recently used during the 2002 legislative session by then-House Speaker Tom Feeney, was used it to kill former Senate President John McKay’s plan to tax services.

Byrd said the purpose behind calling another “committee of the whole” is to allow the entire House to take up an identical version of a tax bill (CS/SB 1022) proposed by state Sen. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, D-Pembroke Pines, that would create a statewide impact fee on real estate sales. Byrd told House members that the House and Senate must start working off the same budget numbers. Currently, House and Senate budgets are about $1 billion apart.

House Democrats were shocked by Byrd’s announcement.

Byrd also reiterated his opposition to new taxes, but somberly told the House he would let its members make the final decision on whether they wanted to raise taxes or make Florida’s government live within its means.

In the final discussions on HB 1791 – the budget implementing bill – several amendments caused additional controversy.

In a 65-41 vote that was split along party lines, the House defeated an amendment by Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Dania Beach, to keep the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) as a separate agency from the Auditor General’s Office. Ryan cited the Enron/Arthur Andersen controversy of 2002, saying, “We all know what happens when the auditor is also the consultant.”

Rep. Ray Sansom, R-Fort Walton Beach, the alternating chairman of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, refuted the amendment, say that his committee had voted to merge OPPAGA into the Auditor General’s Office in an effort to produce greater efficiency in state government. The merger move was opposed by House Minority Leader Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, but lauded by Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka, the Legislature’s only current member who is a CPA.

The FICPA will keep you posted as events warrant. If you would like additional information regarding any legislative or regulatory developments, please call FICPA Governmental Affairs Director Jennifer Jankowski Green at (850) 224-2727, Ext. 201, or send her an e-mail at greenj@ficpa.org.