Florida's Growing Pains

By Cristina Garcia/Tallahassee

Charles and Dianne Jones moved to Jacksonville last September to escape Houston's depressed economy and stretch their dollar a little further in a state known for its low taxes. What they found along with the Florida sunshine were inadequate schools, clogged roads and poor social services. "We have a 16-year-old daughter who comes home from school with a different problem every day," says Mrs. Jones. "She can't get this; the school doesn't provide that. You get three cars on the road, and you have a traffic jam."

Signs of decay are everywhere in Florida. The state's waterways are polluted, and its public health system is woeful. The prisons teem with criminals who are often released before their original sentences expire to make room for others. More than 300,000 newcomers arrive annually, straining a system already near the breakpoint. The state department of education estimates that it must absorb 800,000 new students and build 933 new schools during the next decade just to keep pace with growth.

Rookie Republican Governor Bob Martinez hoped to finance the future with a 5% tax on the services industry, Florida's largest and fastest-growing sector of the economy. The tax, which became law last July, affected services from pet grooming to lawyers' fees. It was expected to produce $800 million in the first year and provide a solution to the state's need for money.

But in September, Martinez called for a repeal of the tax amid a blizzard of criticism from advertisers, real estate agents and citizen groups who complained about inequities and red tape. Last month the legislature replaced the services tax with a penny increase in the state sales tax. Critics contend that the new 6% duty will raise no more than half of the estimated $52.9 billion that Florida will require for roads, schools, prisons and hospitals in ten years.

The search for new money won't be easy. The state constitution bans a personal income tax, and other revenue raisers are equally unpalatable. "The people of Florida have not yet grasped the enormity of our financial problems," says Sam Bell, chairman of the Florida house appropriations committee. "We're not even talking about improvements here. We're just trying to keep from going under."

At first, says Joe Serio, former Florida director of the American Association of Retired Persons, retirees often oppose fiscal measures needed to deal with Florida's problems. "But," he adds, "after a while they notice the long lines of autos wherever they go and the difference in the quality of the libraries from where they came from."

Many Floridians seem willing to pay for better services, but they share a widespread suspicion that the government is not sufficiently frugal. In a recent study by Florida TaxWatch, a nonprofit taxpayers group based in Tallahassee, the average respondent believed the government wastes a third of every dollar it spends. Says Reed Gidez, 28, who moved to Tampa from New Jersey a year ago: "I would be willing to pay more taxes if state leaders could convince me that they were actually going to do something with the money." For the leaders of the fourth largest state in the nation, that will remain a challenge for years to come.