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The state will have more money for schools, less money for health care and fewer member projects. Whitney Ray was in St Johns County today as Governor Rick Scott signed the states new 70 billion dollar budget and tells us why Scott vetoed 142 million dollars in pet projects.

Surrounded by elementary school students in St Johns County Governor Rick Scott explained how a bill becomes a law. He then signed the biggest bill of them all, the state’s 70 billion dollar spending plan. Before signing the bill Scott vetoed 142 million dollars in spending projects.

“All of us think about the family that makes 40 thousand dollars a year. They are paying sales tax, they pay property tax. They’re paying fees to the state. We’ve got to make sure their dollars are spent well,” said Scott.

There’s a billion more dollars for schools in the new budget, but it’s not enough to cover last years 1.3 billion dollar cut, plus the state is getting more students. Talking to reporters after the budget signing Scott disputed the math.

“Let’s look at the numbers. We kept basically state education funding flat last year, what happened is federal stimulus money can in and then the federal stimulus money went through our state budget and it went away,” said Scott.

The budget also for-goes 300 hundred million dollars for Medicaid. Take into account matching federal money and affordable health care cash and the cut deepens to a billion dollars. The 142 million dollars Scott vetoed includes 61 percent of the projects identified by Florida TaxWatch on its annual budget turkey list.