>>This week on NewsNight central Florida food banks grapple with supply shortages triggered by federa funding cuts amid reports of unprecedente demand.

Plus, Florida lawmaker discuss a potential sales tax cut as the state' finances come into focus.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top storie and issues in Central Florida and how they shap our community.

First tonight, food assistance in central Florida.

Food banks here say $1 billion of cuts to federal programs, including the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP has left them without enough supplies to meet demand.

The federal government supplements the diets of people with low incomes by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost, and buys food from farmers to send to food banks.

The USDA has paused around half of TEFAP's funding $500 million sourced from the Commodity Credit Corporation.

The CCC provides a broad discretionary funding pool, which paid, for example, for food assistance during the Covid pandemic.

But some of the nation's largest food bank networks and distributors say demand is higher than it's ever been.

As U.S. hunger rates climb with the cost of living, it's impacting agencies like the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, which supplies pantries and other organizations throughout the region.

NewsNight's Krystel Knowles spoke with the organization's president and CEO this week.

>>This is real impact.

Changes in food pricing.

Changes in housing.

We need more food, but we're going to get less.

During the pandemic we were around 300,000 meals a day That was the request.

It dropped to unde 220,000 meals a day.

But over the last year or so, it's back up to 300,000 meals a day.

>>Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida President and CEO... >>Source of healthy food.

>>Derrick Chubbs says there will be a ripple effect from the Trump administration's decision to cut more than $1 billion in funding.

Was there any indicatio that this was going to happen?

>>No.

Not really.

We had been watching the farm bill, which is where TEFAP comes from, and wondering what might happen from that.

But we didn't expect it to happen like that.

Also a week or so prior to that, there was another progra that was put on pause as well.

>>The funding they lost for the rest of thi fiscal year ending in September would have paid for 28 truckloads of food.

This entire freezer or these four rows of food.

>>One, two, three, four being completely empty.

>>This nonprofit is the largest charitable food supplie in the entire Central Florida.

They serv about 80 million meals per year.

This funding cut means they'r losing about 910,000 meals.

Now that they foresee these cuts being permanent, the impact to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida is going to affect millions of people in need.

Many of them are on a fixed income like veterans, seniors and single income households.

>>Now that we know that it's permanent, the impact is going to be around $11 million.

Long term for us or about 7 or 8 million meals.

That will not make it to the tables of our friends and neighbors over the next year.

>>Chuck says farmers will also feel the impact.

>>We have great relationships with farmers, and, we distributed around 40 million pounds last year of fresh produce.

75% of that was procured from Florida growers.

So, yeah, and a decent amoun of that we actually purchased.

So this not only impacts us.

This impacts their revenue as well.

The need is going to continue to grow.

>>Are you worried?

>>Absolutely.

Very much.

Yeah.

>>Well let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

And joining us in the studio this week, Jeff Allen from Spectrum News 13 covers politics over there.

Thanks so much for coming in, Jeff.

Really appreciate it.

>>Goo to be here.

>>Good to see you.

Beth Kassab editor of the Winter Park Voice.

Good to see you, Beth.

>>Yeah, great.

>>Thanks for coming in, Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

Good to see you as well today, Ryan.

Thanks, guys, for coming in.

Really appreciate it.

Jeff, let me start with you on this one.

On you covered the cuts to food banks this week.

What have you been learning about those cuts?

>>Well, you know, this jus kind of came to them very quick.

USDA, basically part of the overal federal government's efforts, of course we've been saying to cut what they say is waste fraud and abuse, while USDA said on a dime, we'r dropping this funding from you that obviously affects Second Harvest Food Bank, but they also distribute all that food to their smaller distributors the food kitchens, the food banks, in the local churches and other places.

So that's really pretty damning.

Yeah.

And those are the folks that really get that food to to your local communities, ground level.

So that's really hurting them right now there.

In fact, one church that does a twice monthly food bank, says they're worried week to week, they're going to be able to do that.

And if they do do it, they're not going to be able to give as much food to those folks, hundreds of people who depend on this.

>>I mean, do they report to you what we just heard in Krystel's piece, which is tha there is growing demand?

>>Yeah.

This is coming at really the worst time because they say, well, they're getting less now and they don't kno when that it's a funding freeze.

So they don't kno if they're going to get it back or not when that's going to happen.

It's coming at a time wher people have less and less food.

They're having more trouble and there's more demand.

They certainly see at the Second Harvest Food Bank to think this could possibly b a permanent situation for them.

You've reported in the past, Beth, on the reliance some people have on on foo assistance, I guess particularly for nutritious foods.

Do these cuts affect, do you think, low income in rural areas disproportionately?

That seems to be what we're hearing.

>>Well, right.

I mean, what Jeff's talking about is Second Harvest then, using its network to deliver some of this foo to those areas specifically.

So you're going to see a huge difference in what the pantries can provide when people come in.

And yeah, I mean, this is a time when inflation is still extremely stubborn and food costs are high.

This is affecting more people than a lot of us would think.

>>Yeah.

I mean, some of this federal spending was aimed at relieving Covid hardships, right?

During the pandemic.

The Trump administration says those funds were designed to be temporary.

Advocates say that the need for food, as we just heard is higher than it's ever been.

The CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida wrote an editorial for the OBJ last year.

Why did they say that hunge remains such a pervasive issue in an economy which, by some measures, is not doing badly?

>>Yeah, even in a decent economy.

I mean, you look at our issue with housing affordability and other things people are really struggling to make those day to day costs whether it's rising costs.

But, you know we have a relatively low wage, level of employment when i comes to our tourism industry.

It's really tough for a lot of people to make ends meet.

I know, a part of Florida United Way has a stat that nearly 400,000 Floridian in Seminole, Orange and Osceola are struggling to make ends meet.

And that's a huge deal.

That's a lot of folks who are not just the people you think of like, oh, peopl experiencing homelessness down, you know, people who go to a job every day who might work two jobs every day.

So, you know, we have some real challenge when it comes to those expenses.

>>At the same time, though, Jeff, Florida Senate leaders are looking to provide fundin to supply food banks in Florida.

I mean, what's in the Senate version of the budget?

And what have Florida Republicans saying about food need in the state?

>>You know, of course, these state lawmakers, they're more directly connected, you know, with their communities here.

And this isn't, you know, this coming as a result of what's happening at the federal level.

But it could be coming just in time, because they're basically proposing about $50 million as part of that state budget that they're working through right now in Tallahassee to basically provide, it would work with Florida farmers, fresh from Florida, basically kind of give them a boost because it would, increase, give them some money and basically, get point that food towards, food banks across the state.

So this could be something that could really help them at a critical time when this federal funding is really in limbo.

>>Certainly interesting timing for sure.

And for some people, pretty fortuitous.

Well, you can find a link to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida's Food Location tool on our website.

If you need assistance yourself, it's at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay.

Next tonight, special election this week for two of Florida's congressional seats.

The Republicans won both, including Randy Fine in Central Florida's district six where he'll replace Mike Waltz.

Now President Trump's national security advisor.

But the margin of victory fo the GOP was down from November.

In those districts, Fine won by about 14 points, whereas Trum swept the district by 30 plus.

I spoke this week with Aubrey Jewett, political scientist at the University of Central Florida.

>>I definitely think it had something to do a lot to do with Trump.

And then historically, Democratic turnout in special elections was slowe because they had, for instance, lower income blue collar workers as part of their base.

Well, now a lot of those folks have switched over to the Republican side.

And so Republicans say they have to start getting use to the idea of that, because now their bas now includes maybe people who are not always goin to turn out.

Whereas historically, maybe they did include people that would do that, that they're going to have to figure out a better way, a better job, do a better job of mobilizing their base who maybe used to be on the Democratic base and didn't show up.

Right.

So that I think is an additional factors.

>>Aubrey Jewett from UCF.

Jeff, you've been covering these races this week.

What do you think about Aubrey Jewett's point there that this is partly a repudiation of the Trump presidency, but also partly of the GOP's dependency on those lower propensity voters?

Yeah, of course, you have a Democrats who were trying to harness the displeasure or disapproval of what they say have been a negative agenda s far by President Donald Trump.

So they were trying to trying to get Democrats to the polls because of that.

But you also saw a bigge turnout for a special election.

Special elections usuall are down at maybe like 15, 20%.

We saw actually a over 30% turnout in some areas.

That's really a big deal for for something where you didn't have a president on the ticket.

A state senator on the ticket.

So what we saw here i Democrats, I think, coming out a little more, they're energized.

They saw the defeats in last November elections across the country here locally and in Florida.

So they were more energized to come out.

Whereas Republicans, I think there was a sense of, hey, we got this in the bag.

We've got all control here at the federal level.

The Senate, the House, here in Florida.

So maybe not as much motivation for them to come out in a special election.

I mean, it was interesting, wasn't it, Beth, to look at the sort of the breakdown of how voters went i different parts of district six.

It certainly wasn't straightforward win for the GOP.

>>Right.

So, you know, I think we're seeing the last couple of days, Democrats across the country trying to find some glimmers of hope from the special election results here and elsewhere, like Wisconsin and-- >>The Supreme Court race.

>>Right.

And, you know, I thin Volusia County jumped out at me.

I guess just as a longtime Central Florida person, I'm used to Volusia going red and the margin for Randy Fine in Volusia, I believe, was certainly slimmer than what the GOP is used to.

And that's just kind of interesting if you're if you're kind of sitting on the sideline watching some of this play out.

>>Governor DeSantis said on Wednesday that this was not a repudiation of MAGA.

But of Randy Fine himself right, who he accused of repelling peopl with some pretty strong remarks from the governor, and that it was only because of Trump's endorsement, that Fine did as well as he did.

Fine has certainly bee a controversial figure, right, for some of his positions.

Did that come across in the campaign at all?

>>Well, you know, of course, he has faced ethics complaints in the past.

Just last fall, in October, he was in contempt of court, for showing up and kind of, the judge said he mouthed, potentially some obscenities and, kind of was came into it was actually a virtual, court appearance, but he was in a t shirt and, you know, so he was in contempt of court.

But, you know, that really didn't matter for Republican voters.

That hasn't mattered reall for them overwhelmingly, as he's continue to, you know, get, into new public offices.

So, I think what you saw here, is really, you know, a situation where he, he got in, but it was a much smaller margin, than what has been won in that district in the past.

What Trump, garnered in votes there.

We were talking over 30% wins.

Just last November-- >>We saw this in District One as well, right?

>>Yeah.

District One, district Six.

Yeah.

And and it was the same margin, about 14, 15% wins in this.

So that's about half of wha we've seen much smaller margin.

And it happened in both districts.

So you know I think that may be more of a kind of a thing betwee the governor and and Fine there.

>>I mean, the other thing i but find it, spend a lot of time during the campaign in Tallahassee.

Right.

He was still a a state senator didn't resign until shortly before the election.

He was also outraised in terms of money.

Right.

There was a money advantage for the Democrats here.

Yeah, it was about 10 to 1 in this race between Randy Fine and th Democratic challenger Josh Weil.

So of course money can't do everything.

And we saw you know, he he did win.

But again, a smaller margin there.

Jos Weil was able to get out early with that money on ads on TV, print media with a lot of attacks against Randy Fine.

And it could have, yo know, made made some ground up.

And it'll certainly be interesting to see what this portend for the 2026 midterm elections.

You can find more from my interview with Aubre Jewett from UCF on our website.

Visit u online at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay, next tonight, Florida's finances are a major topic of conversation this legislative session.

Lawmakers are arguing over potential tax cuts and even where the tax burden in the state should lie.

The Republican leader o the Florida House has proposed a $5 billion cut in the state's sales tax, while the governor say the priority should be cutting and eventually eliminating property taxes.

Lawmakers are debating a number of joint resolutions to get the propert tax idea on the ballot in 2026.

The governor touted the proposals at the Florida Realtors Association in Orlando this week.

>>Propert taxes are an anomaly because, you know, they're not voluntary.

Consumptio taxes are basically voluntary.

And I go to the supermarket, most of the stuf you buy, there's not tax, right?

But if I buy some other stuf that is not considered a staple, I just know I'm going to pay tax on if I go buy a big screen TV, I'm going to pay tax on it, and I can choose to buy that or not buy that.

But you just basically for subsistin and living on your own property, on your own parcel of land, your own home, particularly people that that own it fre and clear of any encumbrances.

You got to just keep writing a check to the government just for the privilege of using your own property.

And that's an anomaly.

That's not the way good tax policy should be.

It certainly undercuts the idea of private property that you own outside the reach of the government.

>>Governor DeSantis, there.

A reminder, we are recording the show on Thursday morning.

So things can change by air time.

Ryan, let me start with you on this one.

The governor wants voters to eliminate property taxes, right the November election next year.

But he's asking the legislature to do some other things more immediately.

What does he want in the interim?

>>In the interim, he wants to have $1,000 tax break for, homestead, folks in the state of Florida.

He's kind of made this case that, he wants that to apply to, residents of Florida, whereas he's made the case that a sales tax break that potentially would help Floridians, but that would also help folks that are visiting.

So he's kind of tried to position this as a way to ensure that Florida residents are getting this break.

And, you know, we'll see whether that comes to pass.

>>Particularly for people with a homestead.

So not second homes or vacation homes and things like that.

We heard the governor just now make his case for eliminate property taxes.

Beth, what's the pushback on that proposal?

I'd imagine there is quite a lot of pushback.

>>There is especially, on the local government level and and I would say as somebody who's lived here and reported on these issues for 25 plus years, you know, the governor's description of property taxes is really a vast mischaracterization of and misrepresentation.

You were not being taxed for the simply the privilege of living on your own land that you own.

You're being taxed because the infrastructure around you costs money to maintain.

So if you prefer that your roads are nice and clean and paved and there's sidewalks and parks and schools, that's what that money is going toward.

It's, it's it has very little to do with the fact that you're just simply sitting there, remaining on the property.

>>And local governments say they do rely on that property tax revenue.

Right.

And in some cases, particularly in Winter Park, there is talk about trying to increase, property taxes.

You've covered that discussion in that city.

>>Yeah.

So since the pandemic we have seen, local governments across Central Florida, many of them up their millage rate by a little bit.

And the millage rate is what is used to determine how much you pay on on property taxes in your town or in your county, depending on which jurisdictio which jurisdiction you live in.

Winter Park has not done this.

They've maintained the same millage rate for 16 years.

They have been able to collect more taxes because each year the housing market's been prett good-- >>Values go up.

>>Values go up, right.

>>Yeah.

>>So they've been able to, continu on providing the same services and even increasing services in some cases by, by just, adapting to those value increases.

But there is some discussion, should they target a small increase to help with transportation, for example, or with police and fire?

That's been also part of the discussion.

And, you know people need to, understand that wiping out property taxes, I mean, that's how local governments fund police and fire.

So if you appreciate the fact that you can call 911 and get some help, you know, that's what that money's paying for.

>>And the governor would push back against that.

And we'll hear from the governor again in a moment.

The governor says he thinks, Ryan, that tourists should make up the revenue gap.

But at the moment, tourist development tax dollars, the bed tax or hotel tax, as we call it, can only be used in very specific ways.

What are the current constraints?

>>So right now, they can only use for, tourist development type purposes.

That includes, tourist infrastructure you think of in Orange County, the, convention center or some of the sports stadiums as well.

You have, as well Visit Orlando for tourism promotion purposes kind of having ads and other things out in the community.

You know, they promot kind of all over the world when it comes to the destination.

But, others have tried to have that expanded to other uses like, oh, transportation.

Tourists use that here.

Why can't we use it for that?

But you can't do that.

>>I mean, right, yeah.

I mean, getting tourist to pay more for things, right, Jeff, seems to sort of line up with long time Democratic demands, for a more diversified use of hotel taxes.

We seem to see this play out every year when when counties decide how to divvy up that money.

And there is actually a legislative effort this time, this session to free up that TDT money.

>>Yeah.

Basically it's it's led some Democratic senators in the state House and they basically want to, reduce the amoun that goes towards, those direct you know, kind of, these advertising efforts they actually criticized one.

It was like a $600,000 ad that was directed towards Taylor Swift fans.

Basically to get them to come to, you know theme parks in Central Florida.

And they say, you know, we want some of the more of that money kind of going towards concerns here in Central Florida.

So they want to reduce the amount that would go towards that and increase the amount that would go towards things like maybe, affordable housing or you know, needs that they say-- >>Transportation-- >>Work at those theme parks need because they don't make, you know, enough money.

So that's, that's kind o what they're looking for here.

>>Yeah.

Be interesting to see how the, tourist industry comes down on that.

At the same time as the property tax discussion, Florida's House leadership recently laid out its proposals for cutting sales tax.

The Florida Policy Institute says sales and excise taxes make up about 80% of Florida's revenue.

Democrats and some economists say there would need to be an increase in sales taxes to accommodate a property tax cut.

But Republican House Speaker Daniel Perez wants sales tax cut from 6 to 5.25%.

The governor, meanwhile, appears lukewarm on the idea.

He says a sales tax cut would amount to a tax break for tourists, and that property taxes should be the priority.

Here is Speake Perez, followed by the governor.

>>Th membership is excited about it.

The membership is very excited.

I you know, w we have continued, to state how much of a responsibility we feel as the legislature as the House, as members of the House to cut the fat of the budget.

And we said that opening day, that organization session.

And today is just the beginning of what the membership has been wanting for so long.

>>And at the end of the day, it's about Florida first, we got to put Floridians first.

I don't want to keep taxin Floridians on these properties to be able to subsidize, a tax cut for Canadians.

I'd rather the Canadians pay taxes to subsidize the reduction in Florida property taxes.

It just makes sense to me.

>>Governor DeSantis there.

>>Jeff it seems, from what we heard, just now, that there's disagreement, I would say it's fair to say amongst Republicans over tax priorities.

The governor seems lukewarm o those sales tax cuts doesn't he?

The legislature seems lukewarm on his property tax ideas.

Spectrum News heard from the president of the Senate about this.

What are you guys hearing?

>>Well, yeah, it's interesting.

Democrats are kind of sitting by and kind of letting Republicans work this out because they kind of wan to do things differently here.

The Senate president, has expressed concerns about, lowering the sales tax because they're looking ahead towards, you know, if we see more economic downturn, they still want to kind of have that rainy day fund.

Right now there would be about maybe 2 billion, left in the budget.

May seem like a lot, but if we have a economic shortfall, they worry of reducing sales tax is going to reduce, extra reserve funding in the state.

They don't want to.

They want to be fiscally responsible.

So, the governor has not said that he would necessarily veto the sales tax idea, but he wants to prioritiz the homestead, the property tax.

He wants to get that in first.

And then from there they're going to work this out.

And it'll be interesting over the next month.

You know they can come to agreement here because right now they are not in agreement.

>>I mean, a lot of this revenue discussion ties in with the Florida DOGE effort targeting spending at local governments and state higher education institutions.

Governo DeSantis says he wants to look into the finances of local governments, which he says will sho that if property taxes are cut, local services would not be in jeopardy, as critics claim.

Here's the governor on that in Orlando this week, followed by the Democrats leader in the Florida House, Fentress Driscoll.

>>We have major countie in this state that have had massive expansion of their budgets just in the last 5 or 6 years and the reason is they're getting more revenue from the property tax and is that the those budgets need to grow by that much.

I think the answer is probably going to be no.

But we want to be able to do that so that voters can see because they'll tell you, oh, they can't do property tax relief, because then you're not going to have any police or any.

That's not true.

>>The Florida Constitutio actually requires the state to have a commissio on government efficiency.

It's actually in our stat constitution, and it's mandated to meet every four years to make those sorts of recommendations.

Well, actually, like, you know, logical, reasonable recommendations that you would hope that a Florida DOGE would.

So when I see that there's a Florida DOGE being created, it just looks to me like the governor tryin to get into national headlines.

>>Fentress Driscoll there.

To note, WUCF is licensed to the University of Central Florida, one of the higher education institutions subject to Florida DOGE scrutiny.

Beth the governor is pressing ahead with his plans for a Florida version of DOGE.

How is that effort taking shape?

>>So what we've seen so far on the local government level is, the governor's DOGE folks have sent emails to city governments and county governments and asked them some very basic questions like, hey, have you defaulted on your loans?

Have you defaulted on any other creditors?

Have you, have you been running major deficits?

And most cities like, let's say, Winter Park, for example, they are run, pretty, on a pretty conservatively from a fiscal basis.

They have a huge reserve fund that they insis on maintaining for a rainy day because there have been weather events, hurricanes and the pandemic where they've had to do that from time to time.

So, you know, I'm not sure how far the DOGE effort is going to go.

I will mention, you know, there's been some reporting that, the governor did hire one of the inspector generals from the Department of Transportation who was actually fired by Trump-- >>By the Trump administration that's right.

>>And so it'll be interesting to see whether, anything else comes of this effort whether they try to dig in more on city and county government.

But, so far it's been it' been kind of a couple of emails.

>>Well, the finances of state and local government certainly in the spotlight.

I'm sure you guys will keep an eye on this conversation.

A reminde you can find us on social media.

We're at WUCF TV on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll also find us @NewsNightWUCF on X.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Jeff Allen, Beth Kassab and Ryan Lynch.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

From all of us here at NewsNight.

Take care and have a great week.