Legislative finagling
On Monday, the Florida legislative leaders finalized the budget, where it now sits during a mandatory 72-hour cooling-off period before the legislature approves it tomorrow. Unfortunately, the legislature did not approve the governor’s recommendation for a 2.44% increase to the base budget for state and university employees but instead approved a one-time $1000 bonus to all state and university employees who have satisfactory performance and are employed for the several months before the bonus on November 1 this year.
This bonus may benefit a few categories of employees—those who leave state or university employment in the few months after November 1 as well as those whose salaries are well under $40,000 (whose percentage increase would have been far less than $1000) and who expect to resign or retire within a year or so. But a bonus doesn’t go into base pay, so long-term employees will be hurt. If the governor vetoes other measures that would improve university funding in the next year, the situation is not going to be pretty, and that’s true on several levels.
