More specifics on Crist’s budget. These all seem to be pretty good ideas, even if some of them appear to be a bit on the low side:
— $3.7 million more to increase the state’s task force fighting Internet crime against children from 10 to 60 officers.
— $8.6 million more for substance abuse treatment and education of inmates.
— $40 million in new money for a reduction in the sales tax on cell phone, cable and satellite television and other communications services.
— $85 million to continue sales tax “holidays” for hurricane preparation, back-to-school and energy conservation purchases.
— $10 million in new money for begin an Internet-based tutoring of public school students.
— $26 million more to hire 400 additional reading coaches.
— $3.9 million to continue implementing class size reduction.
— $295 million to double teacher merit pay bonuses to about $4,000.
— $1.4 billion more to increase public school spending by 7.5 percent including a $500 per student increase.
— $137.5 million more to increase State University System spending by 4.1 percent.
— $66.4 million more to increase community college spending by 6 percent.
— $25.7 million more to provide an additional 12,673 Bright Futures scholarships.
— $32.5 million in new money to buy paper-based optical scan voting machines so counties can replace touch-screen machines.
— $100 million more to purchase sensitive lands under the Florida Forever Program, a 33 percent increase.
— $50 million to continue Lake Okeechobee cleanup and rehabilitation.
— $40 million to help implement rehabilitation of the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers.
— $100 million to fully fund Florida’s share of the state-federal Everglades restoration project.
— $68 million in new money for grants, rebates and tax incentives to encourage energy conservation.
— $40 million in new money to establish an Alternative Energy Incentive Fund.
— $750,000 in new money to create a public education program to encourage energy conservation and alternative energy use.
— $10 million to continue the state’s Renewable Energy Technology Grant Program.
— $36.7 million to establish a state stockpile of antiviral medicine in the event of a flu pandemic.
— $1.3 million to create the Governor’s Commission on Physical Fitness and Nutrition.
— $20 million in new money for adult, umbilical cord blood and amniotic stem cell research.
— $78.9 million in new money for mental health treatment for jail inmates including support teams and 271 new treatment beds.
— $51 million more to comply with a constitutional amendment requiring the state to spend $57 million in tobacco settlement money on anti-smoking programs.
— $44 million in new money to handle an expected increase in the number of children signing up for KidCare, the state’s subsidized health insurance program for children.
— $22.6 million in new money to promote adoption including a new Office of Adoption and Child Protection.
