Those are just some of the ways in which the state Legislature may balance the budget in the coming year and fill a $3 billion gap caused by sagging tax collections.
Still to come in the next few days: Detailed plans that spell out how to slash more than $1 billion alone from the healthcare programs that help out the poor and elderly.
`PATHETIC'
''It's really just pathetic,'' said Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who sits on the Senate budget panel that oversees healthcare spending. ``We have a tattered safety net now, and we will have none if these cuts are made.''
While Gov. Charlie Crist called on lawmakers to avoid another round of deep budget cuts this spring, GOP leaders in the House and Senate are pushing ahead with billions in reductions as they draw up the budget for fiscal 2008-09, which begins July 1. They have already cut $1.6 billion in state spending in the past six months.
Among those likely to lose out: College students. Both the House and Senate are calling for a 6 percent tuition hike for community college and university students. The House also wants to trim back the amount of financial aid grants to low-income college students as well as those who attend private universities.
Those hoping to attend FIU's fledgling medical school may have to wait. The Senate is considering no new money for the school, a move that could force the school to delay its planned 2009 opening. The House has set aside a $6.4 million increase.
Both the House and Senate also appear ready to delay expensive class-size requirements for public schools that were supposed to take effect this next fall.
One of the ''biggest losers,'' said Tampa Republican Sen. Victor Crist, will be the state's prison system. Crist, the chief of the criminal justice budget panel in the Senate, said as many as 2,616 jobs in the Department of Corrections could be eliminated -- and that could mean layoffs.
A prisons spokeswoman said the number of layoffs is unclear but the department doesn't have that many vacant positions. In the Senate's budget, Crist said, drug-treatment and education programs will be spared as will the court system, which will get a 2.1 percent cut -- as opposed to the contemplated 10 percent across-the-board cuts that Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Lewis said last week were akin to ''murder'' and ``suicide.''
The smaller-than-expected cuts were made as a result of money shifts and increases in court filing and user fees that could generate about $71 million statewide.
Also missing from the Senate budget: About $284 million to pay for two new prisons. Sen. Crist was quick to note that the state isn't necessarily going to hire more private prison contractors to fill the gap, but he isn't ruling it out.
HOW DEEP?
How deep lawmakers wind up cutting the budget is still up in the air. The House's preliminary plans call for spending nearly $1.38 billion more than the Senate, a move that would shield public schools from large-scale cuts. The House is also proposing to cap school property taxes and is not proposing court fee hikes.
House lawmakers made up some lost money by shifting $750 million in taxes from real-estate transactions that are now set aside for road-building, water programs and school construction.
''I don't think we have a choice,'' said House Speaker Marco Rubio. ``In a year like this, clearly the health and safety of the people is paramount. Not that roads are not important -- they are. Not that infrastructure's not critical -- it is. But you can't do that instead of life-sustaining medications on the medically needy or the constitutional requirement to adequately fund public education.''
Miami Herald staff writers Mary Ellen Klas and Evan S. Benn contributed to this report.
