Florida Budget: $5 Billion in Cuts

State lawmakers agreed on the details of next year's budget over the weekend, and the results aren't pretty.

The big headline, that state spending is down $5 billion compared to last year, is maybe too abstract for most of us to get our heads around. When you think of it as a share of the state budget, that helps a bit: we're looking at a $65 billion budget next year, down from $70 billion for the fiscal year that's coming to a close.

Everyone involved recognizes that the cost of funding public services grows with inflation each year, so if you want the state to provide the same basket of services in 2009 that it did in 2008, the budget needs to grow (at least) with the overall rate of inflation, which was about 3% last year.

So, even if the state spent the exact same amount of money in '09 that it spent in '08, some budget cuts would be necessary. But, they fell far short of even that minimal goal. So what's getting cut?
-No raises for virtually all state employees
-No increases in per-pupil funding for education.

That's the big and obvious stuff. But a drumbeat of reporting and op-eds in recent weeks has brought home the smaller-scale, but more catastrophic cuts to safety-net programs this budget will entail. The Ledger's editorial board has a good overview of these cuts here.