Rick Scott, a former health-care executive who spent a record $78 million running for Florida governor, takes office vowing to cut the state workforce by 5 percent to help close a $3.5 billion budget deficit.
Scott, 58, also plans to lower pension costs by $1.4 billion and slash $1.8 billion in expenses for Medicaid, the government health program for the poor. The Republican, who’ll be sworn in today in Tallahassee, promises to reduce property levies by 19 percent and phase out the business-income tax over seven years.
“Our government has grown too fast compared to the private sector,” Scott said in an interview on Bloomberg Television last month. “When that happens, jobs go away, so we have to reduce the size of government.”
Florida and other U.S. states face a combined $140 billion in budget deficits next fiscal year, the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Dec. 16, as tax collections remain below pre-recession levels, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Florida’s projected 2012 budget gap has grown $1 billion from the $2.5 billion when Scott was elected in November. Unemployment that month of 12 percent was fourth-highest in the country and 2.2 percentage points higher than the national average. That and a 41 percent decline in home values from 2006, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have curbed tax collections.
The state, which has no personal-income levy, last month reduced its revenue forecasts for this fiscal year. General revenue in the year that ends June 30 will be 2.6 percent less than projected in August and 2.5 percent less in fiscal 2012.
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Scott, 58, also plans to lower pension costs by $1.4 billion and slash $1.8 billion in expenses for Medicaid, the government health program for the poor. The Republican, who’ll be sworn in today in Tallahassee, promises to reduce property levies by 19 percent and phase out the business-income tax over seven years.
“Our government has grown too fast compared to the private sector,” Scott said in an interview on Bloomberg Television last month. “When that happens, jobs go away, so we have to reduce the size of government.”
Florida and other U.S. states face a combined $140 billion in budget deficits next fiscal year, the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Dec. 16, as tax collections remain below pre-recession levels, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Florida’s projected 2012 budget gap has grown $1 billion from the $2.5 billion when Scott was elected in November. Unemployment that month of 12 percent was fourth-highest in the country and 2.2 percentage points higher than the national average. That and a 41 percent decline in home values from 2006, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have curbed tax collections.
The state, which has no personal-income levy, last month reduced its revenue forecasts for this fiscal year. General revenue in the year that ends June 30 will be 2.6 percent less than projected in August and 2.5 percent less in fiscal 2012.
Read more
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