[Nfbf-l] It's time to call your Representative and Urge Passage of the Senate Budget

[MisterAdvocate at aol.com]

Unlikely pair have 
the blind in mind 
Written by 
Jim Ash 
News Journal  capital bureau  
12:00 AM, Mar. 28, 2011| 
TALLAHASSEE — With the exuberance of a  typical 9-year-old, Alan Williams 
ignored the rules and ran full speed through  the house — only to slam face 
first into an open closet door.

Wearing an  eye patch for four days in 
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital saved the vision in his damaged  eye.

Decades later, the close call has thrust the young, black liberal  Democrat 
from 
Tallahassee into the same obscure House club as Dennis Baxley,  a 
middle-age, white, ultraconservative Republican from Ocala who until recently  worked 
as 
executive director of the Christian Coalition.

Few  legislators could be further apart on 
the political spectrum. No two  legislators  
both members of the "Vision Caucus" —  
could be more dedicated to preserving 
services for the blind and  visually impaired.

"I had an incident when I was a child, I have a friend  whose child is 
visually impaired and my mother has been fighting glaucoma since  1980," 
Williams said.

This year, Williams is handing out legislative  business cards printed in 
Braille. He is sponsoring a bill that would encourage  the rest of the 
Legislature to do the same.

"If we're going to make  government more transparent, we're going to have 
to make it transparent for  everyone," he said.

Baxley and his wife, Ginette, raised an 
adopted  son, Jeffrey, who lost his vision as an infant. Navigating a 
complicated system  of rehabilitative services, and grateful for the success they 
brought his son,  Baxley founded the caucus in 2005.

When the committee chairman isn't  
championing gun rights or anti-abortion 
legislation, he is working  quietly behind the scenes with advocates to 
protect the 
Division of Blind  Services, an arm of the 
Department of Education.

This year, as the  Legislature struggles with a $3.7 billion budget 
shortfall, Baxley and his  fellow caucus members have their work cut out for  them. 
On Thursday, House leaders put the final  touches on an education spending 
proposal that would slash K-12 spending nearly  10 percent and cut $800,000 
from the division.

DBS serves 36,000  Floridians and gets 
most of its nearly $40 million budget from the federal  government. 
Advocates say an $800,000 cut would seriously threaten a program  that serves about 
1,000 blind babies a year.


Blind babies and another program that  
serves blind and visually impaired seniors would be at greatest risk,  
advocates say, because they get most of their funding from state general  
revenue.

Baxley winces at the thought.

"Of course, these are times  when every 
program is being asked what it can give, 
not what it can  take," Baxley said. "But 
blind babies ... As caucus members, we're just  going to have to hold our 
position and see what we can do."

The Senate  does not propose cutting the division. Gov. Rick Scott's budget 
proposal, which  calls for $5 billion in spending cuts, also does not 
target blind  services. 
If $450,000 was cut from the state's Blind  Babies program, it would 
translate into 180 unfunded babies. A similar amount of  unfunded adults/seniors 
would result from a $450,000 cut," said Skip Koch,  executive director of the 
Florida Association of Agencies Serving the Blind. "We  encourage the 
acceptance and passage of the 
Senate's version."

House  Democratic leader Ron Saunders of Tavernier said the threat to the 
program  proves that Republicans aren't just looking to trim fat.

"This says a lot  about their priorities," 
Saunders said. "We're not just talking about laying  off a bunch of 
bureaucrats; we're talking about blind  babies."