The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • B5

Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: OS DESK: LOC DATE: 05-20-2007 EDITION: MET ZONE: MET PAGE: B5.0 DEADLINE: 0.36 OP: epalm COMPOSETIME: 00.46 CMYK FINAL SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2007 B5 Orlando Sentinel FLORIDA After 'Veto expect Crist to have lighter budget touch CAPITOL VIEW JACOB LANGSTONORLANDO SENTINEL Aaron Babcock (left) and Frank Hilgenberg, both of Theatre Downtown, discuss Florida Hospital's plans for the area near Princeton Street and Orange Avenue. 'I am hoping there would be room for a state-of-the-art, 1 50-seat Hilgenberg says. The theater has a lease until the end of 2008. Plan aims to recruit health workers from 75 percent of respondents in the chamber survey of 1,000 likely general election voters, conducted April 29-30 by McLaughlin Associates. Only 6 percent gave the governor poor marks.

A chamber poll in February gave Crist a 65 percent approval rating. Crist's strong numbers come even though Floridians seem lukewarm about the direction the state is heading. Forty-three percent of those surveyed said Florida was going in the right direction, while 41 percent said wrong direction. Crist aide to GOP Another Crist ally is moving in at the Republican Party of Florida's headquarters. Jim Rimes, who until recently was a deputy chief of staff to Crist, has been named the new executive director at the state GOP.

He'll go to work under RPOF chairman Jim Greer, the former Oviedo City Council member who was Crist's handpicked choice to lead the party. Rimes will replace Andy Palmer, who is stepping down in June to join a Tallahassee political-consulting firm headed by Randy Enwright, another former RPOF executive director. Rimes himself spent six years at Enwright's shop before going to work for Crist's gubernatorial campaign. For more insider information and insights on Florida politics, go to Central Florida Political Pulse at orlandosentinel.compoliticalpulse. John Kennedy can be reached at jkennedyorlandosentinel.com.

Jason Garcia can be reached at jrgarciaorlandosentinel.com. Both also can be reached at 850-222-5564. Rookie Gov. Charlie Crist faces another big first this week. Crist has until Thursday to sign the $72 billion budget the Florida Legislature sent to him earlier this month and to decide which of the dozens of hometown projects lawmakers stuffed into it to strip out.

It's a decision that will offer one of the clearest windows yet into the differences between Crist and his predecessor. Nine years ago, then-first-term Gov. Jeb Bush stunned lawmakers by vetoing an unprecedented $313 million from the state budget, axing hundreds of hometown projects, or "turkeys" in Tallahassee parlance. He broke his own record in his final year in office when he slashed nearly $449 million from the budget last spring. All told, Bush vetoed a staggering $2 billion-plus from the budget during his two terms in office, earning the nickname "Veto Corleone." And he was never bashful about it.

Most expect Crist to apply a lighter touch to his first budget. Unlike Bush, Crist served in the Legislature he was a state senator from 1992 to 1998 and he knows the value for lawmakers of bringing home the bacon come election time. But Dominic Calabro, president of Florida TaxWatch, which annually compiles a list of budget turkeys, thinks Crist will still find plenty to veto. The new governor just might be a little more diplomatic than Bush about it, he said. "The reality of it was Bush's style of doing it was sort of rough," he said.

"I think Crist will do it with more, 'I hate to do it, but I gotta do HOSPITAL FROM Bl JOHN KENNEDY JASON GARCIA Adding some political intrigue to it all is that lawmakers are forcing Crist's hand a lot earlier than expected. There had been speculation that Crist wanted the Legislature to delay sending him the budget until after next month's special session on property taxes, because once the governor receives the budget, he has only 15 days to act on it. Waiting would have allowed Crist to use the threat of budget vetoes while trying to drive lawmakers together on taxes. Lawmakers, however, sent him the budget early, negating that strategy. That could make Crist more reluctant to slash turkeys for fear of alienating lawmakers ahead of the special session.

Or it could make him more likely to use his veto pen by giving him the rationale that he simply hadn't had enough time to review them. One thing is for sure, Calabro said. "I know they wouldn't have done it with Jeb Bush." Wild about Charlie Despite the Legislature's deadlock over cutting property taxes, Crist's popularity is climbing, according to a new Florida Chamber of Commerce poll. Crist drew favorable marks see more bus routes linking its Orange Avenue campus to College Park and downtown, Morrison said. Officials envision paths leading to Lake Ivanhoe and the Cady Way Trail.

The planned housing, primarily rental apartments, would serve mostly nurses and other medical professionals in positions that have shortages. The hospital is more than doubling the size of its education facility to train more workers as well. All are seen as good tools to recruit the medical professionals needed to serve region's burgeoning population, Morrison said. Vicki McClure can be reached at vmcclureorlandosentinel.com or 407420-5540. created by Florida Hospital's expansion would pay an average of $41,000.

The median family income in the Orlando metropolitan area grew by only 10 percent between 2001 and 2006, from $52,000 to $57,000. Meanwhile, the median home price more than doubled during the same period, from $120,000 to $259,700, a county study found. Florida Hospital's expansion plans, which still need government approval, "really represent what I like to call enlightened self-interest," Segal said. The project is in addition to an expansion under way now that doesn't include residences. That expansion is to add another 2,200 jobs to the current 6,200.

The hospital would like to would work temporarily in the vacated space. Orange County Commissioner Bill Segal, who is chairman of a task force on affordable employee housing, called the hospital's plans "pioneering." Orange commissioners are trying to get businesses to help more workers find housing, and will talk about the topic at Tuesday's meeting. The move to build homes for hospital workers is part of a growing trend statewide. In Miami, Baptist Health South Florida plans to build or buy affordable rental housing to attract nurses and other workers for its facilities. Many middle-income employees, including health-care workers, are priced out of the housing market.

The new jobs Jeb Bush says he likes education legacy BUSH FROM Bl APPUANCE DIRECT WE JUST OPENED ANOTHER WORLD'S LARGEST APPLIANCE SHOWROOM IN SANFORD ON 1792... LET'S CELEBRATE! ONLY AT APPLIANCE DIRECT GE INSTANT REBATES! PLUS, expressed confidence that his reading initiatives will continue, and that merit pay for teachers will become as generally accepted as the need for high standards in school. It is still unclear, however, whether Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature will continue his programs. Just last month, lawmakers softened the tough merit-pay plan adopted last year while Bush was governor.

Wider audience sought Peterson of Education Next said he gave the Sentinel a preview of the interview in hopes of attracting a wider audience for the former governor's remarks than the policy makers and political leaders that the journal typically reaches. The interview will be available online and in print. The Hoover Institution is a politically conservative think tank that has ties to President Bush's administration and supports many of his policies. Secretary of State Condoleez-za Rice, former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Attorney General Edwin Meese are among its fellows. Because the issue was education, Bush did not discuss future political plans, including whether he would seek the WTiite House.

But the editor said he considered that unlikely anytime soon because of the fall in popularity of the Bush administration. Dave Weber can be reached at dweberorlandosentinel.com or 407-320-0915. in my administration," Bush said. Under Bush, the FCAT became the basis for determining whether children are promoted, particularly in third grade, and the test which determines whether high-school seniors graduate or not. Regarding the No Child Left Behind legislation, the cornerstone education program of his brother, President Bush, Jeb Bush said the law has unrealistic goals.

"It is wonderful to set an as-pirational goal of 2014 for all students in all subgroups in all grades in the United States to be reading and doing math on grade level," he said. "However, it should be just that an aspirational goal." Year after year, Florida schools fall short of progress needed toward meeting the 2014 goal. Yet, Bush says in the interview, Florida students clearly are achieving more, based on improved FCAT results and scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of nationwide exams. Allow vouchers, he says Bush restated his hope that Florida will amend the state Constitution to allow school vouchers. He said the state Supreme Court decision that struck down his private-school "scholarships" for children at failing public schools threatens other state programs that pay private providers for educational services.

Reforms take time to work, the former governor said. He it Bush, who left office in January, talks about school choice, the drive to raise standards for student performance, merit pay for teachers and changes he favors in the federal No Child Left Behind law. A few regrets Much of the interview, which was conducted online this winter, reflects Bush's typically confidant stance. But he uncharacteristically revealed a few regrets about his education program. "We really pressed him hard on that," said Paul Peterson, a Harvard professor who edits the journal, a publication of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Educators were some of the sternest critics of Bush's ideas. Teachers unions opposed merit pay and vouchers to let students attend private schools. Principals and school boards questioned aspects of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test that measures student performance and on which school grades are based. Bush said he could have done a better sales job with such critics. He also said he erred in resisting parents who wanted to see FCAT questions to determine whether their children were fairly assessed.

"Sharing the actual FCAT test questions with the public and with teachers, which we began to do in 2005 once we had enough test items, should have been done much earlier T-SHIRTS! FREE T-SHIRTS! ALL BRAND NEW ALL WITH FULL FACTORY WARRANTY! Shove off, mate Tyler Freyser, 1 3, paddles his kayak, while Sean Gibson, 14, gives him a shove at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont on Saturday. The Clermont youngsters took part in Field Day, which aimed to increase awareness of Florida ecosystems and the plants and animals that live in them. STEPHEN M. DOWELLORLANDO SENTINEL COLORSTRIP: I.