All Fired Up in Florida

I’m officially hot and bothered!  The Florida legislature has gone to great heights to get me to this level, and I just really can’t believe what I’m reading in the press day in and day out about their most recent special session. 

I’ve mentioned in this blog before the fact that the state of Florida ranks dead last in funding for developmentally disabled individuals.  Yes, that’s 50 out of the 50 states.  It’s not a statistic in which any of us who live here are proud.  It’s something we just deal with on a daily basis.  There’s no money in the state coffers, allegedly.  Annually the state budget can’t get balanced without making cuts across the board, or so we hear.  Tourism is down.  The construction industry is in the tanks.  People aren’t moving to Florida in the droves like they were a few years ago.  However, taxes are relatively low, and there is currently no state income tax.  We get it. There’s no money.  We just deal with it.

Then, as if out of thin air, both houses of the Florida congress approve a bill to bring high speed rail to Central Florida.  Not our part of Central Florida, but to the “area” nonetheless.  The piece of legislation, signed into law by Governor Charlie Crist on December 16, comes with the $1 billion-plus price tag made up of Florida taxpayer dollars.  Remember, we don’t have money to pay for the services we already have on the books, so I’m not quite sure from where all of this magic money is coming. 

Some of the guarantees of this great new bill are jobs.  Well we all want more jobs, but this railway system is in between Orlando and Tampa.  How does that help us here in Ocala? What about the folks in Northern Florida, in the panhandle who aren’t getting any piece of this railway pie?  On top of all the frustration, the job-creation numbers for this great project are only in the tens of thousands range, and the numbers of potential commuters on this fabulous new rail system are also in the thousands.  Yes, the price tag for the trains is in the billions with a “b,” and we’re only guaranteed that a few thousand folks will be positively affected by it.

All the while, there are 20,000 people with developmental disabilities sitting on a waiting list in Tallahassee hoping and praying that they will be accepted to receive state Medicaid waiver funding.  Hoping that they could attend programs like those we have at ARC Marion to help give them job skills and training, to offer them hope and a future beyond just sitting at home. 

Do you see why I’m a little hot under the collar?