FHIX Fails In House
June 6, 2015
In the likely final act of one of the most divisive legislative debates in years, the Florida House voted decisively Friday to reject a proposal that would have used federal Medicaid expansion money to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance.
On a 72-41 vote nearly along party lines, the House defeated the bill (SB 2A) creating the Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange, or FHIX, after a grueling discussion that lasted almost seven hours. Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote with Democrats.
The plan would have used Medicaid expansion funding from the Affordable Care Act — commonly known as “Obamacare” — to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance. Supporters said as many as 800,000 Floridians would meet income limits for health care under the plan, though work requirements likely mean that only 400,000 to 500,000 people would actually be eligible.
Many of the provisions would have to be approved by federal officials.
The bill was a top priority of Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and helped derail this spring’s regular legislative session. Lawmakers are now meeting in a special session to resolve health-care issues and a spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1.
“We can say that that issue’s off the table now,” House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, said after the vote. “And we’re here to go put together a budget that’s a balanced budget for the state of Florida.”
Following the vote, Gardiner issued a statement conceding defeat but saying the end of FHIX meant lawmakers would have to find another way to make up for the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for health-care providers who treat large numbers of low-income patients.
“While today’s debate is over and votes have been cast, the critical health care challenges facing Florida still remain,” he said. “This weekend, members of the Legislature will begin a budget conference where we will take hundreds of millions in general revenue that could have been dedicated to schools, roads, our environment or countless other priorities and instead use those limited taxpayer dollars to try to patch together a health care budget that we know we cannot make whole.”
In what House officials said was one of the longest debates in recent history, Democrats spent hours pleading with the GOP majority, often emotionally, to approve the measure.
“A vote for FHIX is a vote to say that every single human life has value,” said Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville. “A vote for FHIX allows us to be in the driver’s seat, to go to the table, to negotiate and to say what we want to have, what we want to see in place.”
Jones was thrust into the unusual role of defending a bill she hadn’t crafted and that she and other Democrats said was flawed. No Republican from the House majority could apparently be found to present the measure.
“We want full expansion,” said Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville. “But this is the best plan we’ve got.”
Republicans, though, said that any attempt to differentiate FHIX from Medicaid expansion was a ruse. They pointed out that the plan would use expansion dollars and cover the same lower-income people that were meant to be covered by Medicaid expansion.
“I may be just a simple country lawyer, but I know an entitlement when I see one,” said Rep. JohnWood, R-Winter Haven. “FHIX is simply Obamacare Medicaid expansion with a clever name.”
Rep. Blaise Ingoglia of Spring Hill, who doubles as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said the plan relied on flawed expectations. Ingoglia said the federal government would not give Florida permission for parts of the program, such as the work requirement, and could reduce its share of the funding in the future.
“I think the FHIX program should be rebranded as the Wishful Thinking program,” Ingoglia said. “Because it is based on a bunch of assumptions that surely will never materialize.”
While Friday’s vote likely means the end of the discussion of FHIX, the health care debate could continue. House Republicans are looking to revamp insurance coverage for state workers and overhaul some longstanding health-industry regulations. Senate leaders had proposed combining those measures with FHIX in a last-ditch effort to strike a compromise.
And the basic outline of the Senate proposal could emerge again in the future. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said Friday afternoon that the chamber could bring the measure back up during the 2016 session.
“I’ve always felt like the problem has to become more troublesome to elected officials than the solution before they ever act,” Lee said. “We’re not there yet, but we’ve got a lot of time in the interim to have conversations.”
House members also approved a tax-cut package (HB 33A), stripped down as lawmakers work to cover health-care costs in the overall budget. The bill offers $273.2 million in savings for the upcoming fiscal year, with an increase to $436 million the following year. The measure passed on a 97-10 vote.
Since the regular session, the House boosted a proposed reduction in a sales tax on commercial real-estate leases. The proposal is now expected to provide an overall $44.2 million in savings. But the largest part of the package — a cut in the communication-services tax on cable-TV and cell-phone services — has taken the biggest hit since the regular session.
Instead of an overall savings once projected at more than $400 million for the next fiscal year, the reduction in the communications-services tax would now reduce state revenue during the 2015-16 year by about $78.4 million, according to state economists. The new rate would provide about $10 a year in savings on a $100 monthly bill.
The package also includes a trio of single-day tax holidays on college textbooks, timed with the start of the upcoming fall, spring and summer semesters.
Gov. Rick Scott had proposed permanently lifting the sales tax on textbooks.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Florida House, Senate Reach Deal On Budget Allocations
June 6, 2015
House and Senate leaders announced Friday that they had struck agreement on the overall shape of a spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1, but lawmakers still face days of detailed negotiations to hash out the finer points of a deal.
The agreement was the first tangible sign of progress on a budget during a special session that began Monday. The new meetings are necessary because lawmakers failed to reach consensus on a spending plan — their one annual, constitutionally-required duty — during the regular session held this spring.
Legislative leaders were quick to tamp down any talk of an early end to the current session, which is scheduled to last through June 20.
“There’s a reason these special sessions for a budget are 19 days, and I think we’ll use almost all of it,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much money the Legislature will plow into a plan to replace the loss of more than $1 billion in federal funding for the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program. Federal officials have said the state can expect about $1 billion next year — less than half of this year’s $2.2 billion — for the program, which sends money to hospitals and other medical providers that care for large numbers of low-income patients.
But lawmakers will almost certainly pour hundreds of millions of additional dollars into health-care, drawing down funding from other federal sources to fill the LIP hole. Gov. Rick Scott has voiced opposition to using state tax dollars to do that, instead of local taxes that now fund LIP, but Lee said he wasn’t overly worried about the prospect of a veto.
“You are wise to keep one eye on what might or might not be acceptable at the plaza level,” Lee said, referring to where the governor’s office is located in the Capitol, “but they’re going to watch us work. They know we’re up here doing our job. And if they have any input, they’ve got my number, and I’d love to chat with them any time.”
Lee also downplayed the possibility that an ongoing lawsuit that Scott has filed against the federal government over LIP funding would be resolved before lawmakers have to complete a budget.
In announcing the deal to his members, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, said his chamber would work cooperatively with the Senate.
“Our job is to keep our eye on the people of Florida, not on a score sheet on whether or not the House or the Senate wins,” he said.
Meetings of “conference committees,” which fill in the more detailed aspects of the budget, will begin Saturday morning. Lee and House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, will start working on any unresolved issues after 12 p.m. Tuesday.
In addition to the health-care issues, the bigger ticket items for lawmakers to hammer out are how much to spend on public schools, where Scott has called for record per-student spending; what to do on land and water conservation spending under a constitutional amendment voters passed last year; and putting together “a tax package that we can be proud of,” in the words of Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.
On Friday, the House approved a slimmed down tax-cut package (HB 33A) that offers $273.2 million in savings for the upcoming fiscal year, with an increase to $436 million the following year. The full Senate has not yet passed its version of the tax-cut legislation.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Sewer Overflow On Washington Street Cleaned Up
June 5, 2015
A Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSOs) occurred on Thursday at 203 Washington Street after an 8-inch sewer force was struck by lightning. The overflow was estimated at 80,000 gallons, of which 78,000 gallons were recovered and transported to the ECUA’s Central Water reclamation Facility for proper treatment and disposal.
ECUA crews repaired the break and the overflow area was then cleaned and disinfected with a biocide agent that abated any contamination concerns, per state protocol. The Escambia County Health Department, the State Warning Point, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection were notified.
Firefighters Battle Bratt Brush Fire
June 5, 2015
Firefighters battled a brush fire in Bratt this afternoon.
The fire in about two acres of pine trees off Ashcraft Road near North Highway 99 was reported about 12:45 p.m. and quickly contained. Firefighters from the Walnut Hill, Century and McDavid stations of Escambia Fire Rescue were dispatched to the blaze, along with the Atmore Fire Department.
There were no structures threatened and no injures reported.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
State Appeals Court Denies ‘Stand Your Ground’ Murder Defense For Molino Mom
June 5, 2015
A state appeals court has rejected a Molino mom’s “stand your ground” defense in the murder of her husband.
The Florida First District Court of Appeals refused to dismiss the second degree murder case against 45-year old Rebecca A. Rogers for allegedly shooting her husband, 42-year old Jason Lee Rogers in August 2013. Her attorneys previously made a motion to dismiss the case in circuit, saying Rogers acted within the parameters of Florida’s self-defense “stand your ground” law. That motion was also denied.
The ruling from the appeals court Thursday won’t allow her to claim she acted under the “stand you ground” law, but it specifically does not prohibit Rogers from claiming self-defense at trial.
Rebecca Rogers allegedly shot her husband twice in the back and once in the head inside the couple’s home in the 3400 block of Highway 29 in Molino. She told a 911 dispatcher that her husband choked her and then she shot him.
Deputies arrived to find Rebecca Rogers standing outside the home. They found Jason Rogers lying unconscious in the back bedroom of the home on his stomach with what appeared to be a gunshot to his head. According to the report, he also suffered two other gunshot wounds to the back. He died at a local hospital about two days later.
The couple had four daughters, one of which testified last year at a preliminary hearing that her father had several guns in the home. “As far as I know, he was going to get them and he was…my mom believed he was going to kill her. So, she was protecting herself,” she said.
Rogers remains free on a $300,000 bond. She is currently set to appear in court again in July.
Escambia School Buses: 5 Million Miles, Only 3 Minor At-Fault Wrecks
June 5, 2015
Statistics released Thursday showed that Escambia County School District bus drivers were involved in only three at-fault wrecks during the 2014-2015 school year, down from 25 six years ago.
“Six years ago, the total was 25 at-fault accidents for the year. With the district driving five million miles per year, it was hard to tell whether that was a good number or a bad number. Even at 25 at-fault traffic accidents per five million miles, that was a rate of one per 200,000 miles, which is the equivalent of more than 10 years of driving for the average person,” explained Robert Doss, ECSD’s director of transportation. “Still, it seemed like a large number to me.”“Having been a Marine pilot, I tend to take the Naval Aviation attitude about it and focus on the fact that one accident is too many because of the harm that one accident might do.”
The district’s transportation department has focused driver training on expecting the unexpected, and that even an accident that is another driver’s fault might could still be prevented by an attentive driver.
“Our bus drivers are the first member of our staff many of our students see in the morning, and the last one they see after school.” Superintendent of School Malcolm Thomas said. “We are very proud of the hundreds of highly professional bus operators who do all they can to give our students a safe trip to and from school.”
Town Of Century Begins Budget Work
June 5, 2015
The Town of Century got an early start on their 2015-2016 budget setting process with a Thursday afternoon special council workshop meeting with department heads.
Each department head met with the three council members that attended the meeting — Ann Brooks, Ben Boutwell and Sandra McMurray Jackson — and Robert Hudson, the town’s accountant. They reviewed their departmental budgets from the current budget year and looked at needs for the upcoming year.
Additional budget workshops are planned for several upcoming Thursdays — June 11 and 18, and Thursday July 9. An additional budget workshop will Thursday, July 16, if needed. All meetings will be held at 1:30 p.m. on the listed dates in the council chambers at the Century Town Hall at 7995 North Century Boulevard.
Final approval for the budget will come in September, with Century’s 2015-2016 fiscal year beginning October 1.
The Town of Century’s budget for the current fiscal year is $5.1 million.
Pictured: Century Street Department Director Larry Murphy (blue shirt) discusses his budget with council members (L-R) Ann Brooks, Sandra McMurray Jackson and Ben Boutwell, and (right) accountant Robert Hudson, Thursday afternoon. NorthEcambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Tate’s Wyatt Named Coach Of The Year; Perkins Runner-Up For State Miss Softball
June 5, 2015
Tate High School’s Tate coach Melinda Wyatt has been named the overall coach of the year and Tori Perkins has been named runner-up for Florida’s Miss Softball, the state’s top player, by the Florida Dairy Farmers.
Perkins was a member of this year’s Class 7A state championship team. She has committed to the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
Wyatt coached that Class 7A state championship team. She had been at Tate for 11 years.
Pictured: Tori Perkins (L) shortly after Tate won the Class 7A softball championship, and Coach Melinda Wyatt (right) tosses a ceremonial first pitch for the Blue Wahoos. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
WWII’s Decisive Battle: Midway Remembered At Pensacola NAS
June 5, 2015
Area Navy commands and the local community remembered the Battle of Midway during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Naval Aviation on board Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola Thursday.
Hosted by the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training (CNATT), the commemoration ceremony honored the service of those who fought in the decisive World War II battle 73 years ago.
Capt. Katherine Erb, CNATT commanding officer welcomed the guests and noted that observances like the Battle of Midway commemoration play an important part in highlighting the Navy’s history.
“Part of our mission as naval professionals is to preserve and celebrate our rich naval history and heritage,” said Erb. “Understanding our past is key to developing strategies to handle the challenges of the future, and is fundamental to building and operating the Navy and Marine Corps forces our nation requires.”
Considered by many military historians to be the turning point of World War II in the Pacific theater, the Battle of Midway was fought in the vicinity of Midway Island June 4-7, 1942. As a response to their sending planes to attack the U.S. base at Midway, Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers were fatally damaged by dive bombers from USS Enterprise (CV 6) and USS Yorktown (CV 5). Four Japanese carriers were sunk, and 3,057 Japanese personnel were killed in the conflict, at the cost of the Yorktown and 307 American personnel. Compelled by their losses, the Japanese were forced to abandon their plans to capture Midway and retired westward. This decisive in for the U.S brought an end to Japanese naval superiority in the Pacific.
Col. Eric Buer, commanding officer of Marine Aviation Training Support Group 21, was the guest speaker for the Battle of Midway commemoration and focused his remarks on how America’s young men and their machines were able to triumph over a seemly unsurmountable force and invincible foe. He addressed the standing-room-only crowd that included several surviving veterans of Midway.
“We are here today not only to remember the great importance of the Battle of Midway, but to remember those who suffered and sacrificed, and those like our shipmates here in the front row who continue to sacrifice,” said Buer. “The story of Midway is about courage, about hope, about conviction and about leadership.”
During the ceremony, a wreath was placed to honor the memories of those who lost their lives during the battle. Midway veteran guests at the event included Chief Aviation Structural Mechanic Gordon Pierce, Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Wiley Bartlett, Radioman 1st Class James Stofer, Petty Officer Leon Resmondo and Barbara Wheeler, wife of the late Chief Aviation Ordnanceman Charles Wheeler.
For Pierce, attending the ceremony was bittersweet. It brought back memories of his shipmates, many of whom have passed away in recent years. “When I think back to previous years’ ceremonies, it saddens me to think of how many of my fellow Sailors are gone now and cannot be here,” he said.
CNATT is the largest learning center under the Naval Education and Training Command and is accredited by the Council on Education. Its mission is to develop, deliver, and support the aviation technical training necessary to meet validated fleet requirements through a continuum of professional and personal growth for Sailors and Marines. In the CNATT enterprise, there are 17 subordinate commands across 27 locations around the world.
by Ed Barker, Naval Education and Training Command
Pictured: ) Rear Adm. Mike White, commander of the Naval Education and Training Command shakes the hand of Chief Aviation Structural Mechanic Gordon Pierce following the Battle of Midway commemoration ceremony at the National Museum of Naval Aviation Thursday. Pierce was a 19-year-old Sailor on the USS Yorktown (CV 5) at Midway. Pictured inset: A standing-room-only crowd participated in the Battle of Midway commemoration ceremony at the National Museum of Naval Aviation Thursday. U.S. Navy photos by Ed Barker for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida House Ready To Vote On Trimmed-Down Tax Cuts
June 5, 2015
The House has positioned its dramatically streamlined tax-cut package for a vote on Friday.
But it remains to be seen how the Senate, which has offered four individual tax-cut bills during the ongoing special legislative session, will handle the House proposal.
Katie Betta, spokeswoman for Senate President Andy Gardner, would only say Thursday that the Senate’s Finance and Tax Committee is “likely” to meet the final week of the special session. The session started Monday and could last through June 20.
The House tax-cut package (HB 33A), stripped down as lawmakers work to cover health-care costs in the overall budget, offers $273.2 million in savings for the upcoming fiscal year, with the number growing to $436 million the following year.
The overall numbers are down from a $690 million plan (HB 7141) that had been proposed by the House during this spring’s regular legislative session and the $673 million in cuts requested by Gov. Rick Scott.
“I believe this is reasonable, given the economic climate we find ourselves in,” said House Finance & Tax Chairman Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican who authored the bill.
Democrats proposed several changes to the tax cuts Thursday, though they withdrew most of the proposals before votes could be taken. They were unable to alter the package that was rolled out of the Finance & Tax Committee on Tuesday.
“What was frustrating, in the tax plan they found a way to increase a tax (cut) to businesses, but didn’t increase the benefit for students,” Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, said.
Since the regular session, the House increased a proposed reduction in a sales tax on commercial real-estate leases. The proposal is now expected to provide an overall $44.2 million in savings.
Still, the largest part of the package — a cut in the communication-services tax on cable-TV and cell-phone services — is also the portion that has taken the biggest hit since the regular session.
Once proposed as a 3.6 percentage-point reduction, which would have provided about a $40 a year in savings for Floridians who pay $100 a month for cable-TV and cell-phone services, the communications-services tax is now proposed to drop 0.9 percentage points. The new rate would provide about $10 a year in savings on a $100 monthly bill.
Responding to questions from Democrats, Gaetz said the tax cuts are designed to help a broad range of Floridians, regardless of the overall savings.
“The goal is not to say that $10 or $20 is going to fundamentally, in some earth-shattering way, change the economic climate of the state of Florida,” Gaetz said. “But it might just mean a little something extra for the poor folks that we represent and the working class who need a little extra at their kitchen table.”
Instead of an overall savings once projected at more than $400 million next fiscal year, the reduction in the communications-services tax would now reduce state revenue during the 2015-16 year by about $78.4 million, according to state economists.
Democrats withdrew amendments to maintain the communications-services tax at the current rates as a way to free up money to give state employees pay raises and to create a sales-tax holiday on items purchased at the Florida Historic Capitol and Capitol Building gift shops.
In a mostly party-line vote, the House rejected, 71-29, an amendment by Williams that would have expanded the proposed back-to-school sales-tax holiday from three days to two weeks.
“We come up here and we talk about let’s do all we can for schools, let’s do all we can for our kids, let’s do all we can for families, this is it, this is the opportunity,” Williams said.
The sales-tax holiday is proposed in the bill to last from Aug. 7 to Aug. 9, eliminating sales taxes on certain clothing under $100, school supplies valued under $15, and the first $750 on the cost of personal computers and accessories.
The tax-cut package includes a couple of other sales-tax holidays.
One would be for small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving as an alternative to the Black Friday sales offered mostly by big box stores.
The package also would offer a trio of single-day tax holidays on college textbooks, timed with the start of the upcoming fall, spring and summer semesters.
Scott had proposed the sales tax on textbooks be permanently lifted.
The measure also would eliminate taxes on admissions and membership fees for gun clubs, certain farm and irrigation equipment, food and beverages sold in support of school extracurricular activities, recycling machinery, and motor vehicles purchased overseas by internationally deployed service members from Florida.
The package would provide refunds or credits from the state’s 6.9 percent excise tax on fuel to flight schools run by Florida-based colleges and aeronautical schools.
The House plan also would eliminate Florida’s estate tax, increase property-tax exemptions for residents who are widows, widowers, blind, or totally and permanently disabled, and provide more tax credits for businesses involved in Brownfields cleanup and for research and development.
Also, cider made from pears would be reclassified from wine to a malt beverage, which would reduce a tax on pear-cider production from $2.25 a gallon to 89 cents a gallon. Cider fermented by apples is already taxed at the lower rate.
The tax also expands a property-tax exemption for service members when deployed outside the continental U.S. to include the following ongoing military operations: Joint Guardian, Octave Shield, Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, Nomad Shadow, U.S. Airstrikes Al Qaeda in Somalia, Objective Voice, Georgia Deployment Program, Copper Dune, Observant Compass, Juniper Shield and Inherent Resolve.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida