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$100 million toward cleanup, but the money diverted is cash taken away from state efforts to eliminate 9,500 contaminated sites still awaiting attention.
Even some of Bush's staunchest allies acknowledge that the unprecedented trust-fund raid could be seen as a whopping tax increase -- even as the governor insists he is holding the line.
"When you remove the connection between a fee and the benefit, and just put the money into general revenue where it can be spent on anything, it begins to walk and talk like a tax," said Dominic Calabro, president of Florida TaxWatch.
Tuition increase planned
Leonard, the UCF student, clearly views the tuition increase as one forcing university students to step up and shoulder a wide range of unrelated state needs. Under Bush's proposal, tuition at Florida's 11 public universities would rise a minimum of 7.5 percent.
Universities that want to make up the state funding they are expected to lose can do so by increasing tuition 12.5 percent next fall. In the end, universities would not have any more money next year for education and student programs, but students would be carrying much more of the load.
"Nothing against the university, but it's getting bad," Leonard said.
For county government officials across Florida, the governor's budget proposals are especially ominous.
They estimate the budget could force either a $237 million property-tax increase, or dramatic cuts in community services.
Orange County taxpayers alone could be forced to pay $6.7 million more for juvenile-detention services, while also losing millions more in affordable housing, mobile-home fees, recycling grants and other trust dollars that Bush would use to bolster sagging state revenues.
"When you have a downward flow of programs, like we're seeing now, it makes for a very nervous year for local governments," said Orange County Chairman Rich Crotty.
"We may be able to get by for a while. But when the pressure points build, you either have to raise taxes or cut services. There aren't many other choices."
The state's sluggish economy, aging population and sharp annual increases in the number of students crowding Florida classrooms have forced the demand for government services upward.
But Bush and the Legislature have steadily cut taxes over the past four years, pulling some $6 billion out of the state treasury.
Bush insists that such tax reductions have helped trigger more economic activity and kept the state financially stronger than most other states, which are struggling with budget deficits far greater than Florida's.