This week, as part of the state's annual budget process, Gov. Charlie Crist released his proposal for paying for the state's education system. To be clear, we don't like it. Read more in today's Lakeland Ledger.

In Florida, the state budget process starts with the governor releasing his proposal, then the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate release their proposals, then they work out their differences over the course of a 60-day legislative session starting in March. It's a process that has been responsible for Florida's decade-long trend of reducing state support for education, and this year doesn't promise much better.

Gov. Charlie Crist released his plan for education funding this week, and it includes another withdrawal from an investment fund that was intended to pay for services to help children and elderly residents. That means we can get a little extra money this year, but in future years there won't be as much income from the investment fund. We call that selling off our kids future. There's also a proposal to expand gambling, which won't help our children either. Here's what Bud Chiles had to say about it this week:

“There’s a culture in Tallahassee that says it’s OK to sell off our state’s future in exchange for short-term political gain, and Charlie Crist’s budget exemplifies it. I hope that lawmakers find a better way to support children and the elderly than selling off the last of their savings and buying into gambling. It’s no wonder that the people of Florida have lost trust in their elected leaders. There are only so many promises you can break before people start to wake up to the truth of what’s happening. Charlie Crist has proposed yet another corporate benefit using funds that were supposed to be a permanent endowment for the needs of our state’s children and elderly.”

The Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund was created for the people of Florida in 1999 with money from Florida’s tobacco settlement. The funds were to provide a perpetual resource for enhanced funding of children’s health programs, child welfare programs, children’s health and human services initiatives, elder programs and biomedical research. The money was invested in order to generate income, and formerly produced from about $100 million to $50 million in state revenue annually.

In 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist convinced legislators and children’s advocates to allow a withdrawal of more than $350 million from the endowment to meet a budget shortfall, then surprised advocates with a second raid on the fund that led to an additional $700 million withdrawal in 2009.