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Federal Budget cuts may leave thousand of Floridians in the cold. To balance the budget congress is looking at a two billion dollar cut to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. As Whitney Ray tells us, one state lawmaker has found extra money for the program, but it’s not nearly enough to cover the proposed cuts.

Over the past two years the amount of unclaimed utility deposits has risen to 4.7 million dollars a year. Right now the money goes to the Department of Education. If the law is changed, education will have to find 4.7 million dollars somewhere or make cuts.

Patricia Walton and her fiancé Domingo are both disabled. They live on a fixed income and have to watch their utility costs closely.

“Right now I would say it’s 119. So I’m afraid it might get too high,” said Walton.

The couple wants to enroll in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but the money may not be there. Congress is calling for cuts to the program to balance the budget.

“We are barely making it. All my bills go directly on one check,” Walton.

The cuts would lower Florida’s portion from 110 million dollars a year to about 30 million. Dorothy Inman-Johnson runs a nonprofit that administers the program. She says the cuts would leave thousands of seniors without heat or air.

“We probably have enough money to operate from maybe two, three months and then we would probably be out of money,” said Inman-Johnson.

One state lawmaker has a plan to fill the void left by the federal cuts, using unclaimed utility deposits. State Senator Gary Siplin filed a bill that would bring in about four million dollars a year for the program.

“Seniors have to decide between paying their light bill, their prescription drug bill and buying food and I think that’s gross and unfair,” said Siplin.

The money is miniscule compared the 80 million dollars congress wants to cut. But the average benefit awarded in Florida is 500 dollars, which means not counting administrative costs, the money could help 8-thousand low-income Florida’s pay their bills.