Florida government officials are touting their efforts at reducing the state’s debt.<\/p>\n
Ben Watkins, Florida’s bond finance director, gave the Florida Cabinet<\/a> an update at a Tuesday meeting.<\/p>\n “The folks in D.C. ought to take a page out of our book, they can learn something from it,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n ALSO READ: How far does Florida\u2019s property tax proposal go? There are some questions<\/a><\/p>\n Watkins said the state’s focus in paying off bonds and borrowing less have paid off. Another thing<\/a>: recent state budgets have devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to paying off the debt.<\/p>\n Watkins said the state has cut its debt by more than half since Gov. Ron DeSantis took office, by an average 3 million dollars a day: from $17.5 billion to roughly $8.7 billion.<\/p>\n But Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando said they\u2019re not mentioning something to the public.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need to understand that the state itself has engaged in excessive spending,\u201d he said, pointing to the money<\/a> the state put toward the Everglades detention center, called Alligator Alcatraz<\/a>. \u201cAlso the consequences: certainly a drastic cut to our public schools, to programs for people with disabilities, to environmental programs.”<\/p>\n