The State Legislature: By the Numbers. Guest Blog by Youbetcha'

Did you know there were 283 Pages of Lobbyist/Clients in the State Directory and that there is a $6 billion dollar State budget short-fall?

Naples Daily News reporter, Michael Peltierin in his column, Crunching Numbers as Legislative Session Winds Down, came up with an interesting list of information for you trivia fans! Michael apparently likes and does well with numbers. So, here's a partial list of numbers that may surprise you about the state government, or maybe not, depending on how cynical you are about your state legislature:

- 5: Number of days left in the 2009 Legislative session without going into overtime or special session. Lawmakers are scheduled to end May 1, but that is becoming increasingly unlikely.

- $40,000: How much it costs for each extra day of session. The figure includes per diem and housing costs for lawmakers and staff. This reporter has been covering state legislatures since 1994. The figure hasn't changed, which begs the question: "Has the real cost of running a day of special session actually decreased over time?"

- 76-44: The Republican majority in the House.

- 26-14: The Republican majority in the Senate.

- $6 billion: The budget shortfall lawmakers must fill to pass a 2009-2010 budget.

- $500 million: The difference between the Senate's $65.6 billion budget and the House's $65.1 billion spending plan. The difference has prevented talks (public anyway) talks between House and Senate conferees on what areas of the budget will be changed to make the budgets match. Until leaders come up with a bottom line number, figuring out how it comes together can't take place.

- 119: The chapter of Florida law that requires meetings between public officials to be open to the public. The Sunshine Law, as it's commonly called, becomes especially relevant (and abused) during budget negotiations. Despite the lack of any formal meetings, leaders from both chambers have taken heat this past week for conducting negotiations in private. Telephone calls and staff exchanges are typical ways to circumvent the law.

- 246: The number of sales and use tax exemptions now on the books. Taken together, they exempt more than $12 billion from state coffers. Though exemptions for ostrich (and other animal) feed, and Super Bowl tickets make the headlines, bigger ticket items include food, medicine, bottled water, charter fishing rentals and others.

- 5: The number of meetings of the House Finance and Taxation Council devoted to public testimony and debate on possible eliminations of certain sales tax exemptions.

- 0: The number of exemptions that have been eliminated so far during in the 2009 Session.

- 104: Number of pages in Associated Industry of Florida's legislative directory, a list of state and federal lawmakers, committees and staff.

- 283: Number of pages in the official Legislative lobbyist directory, which lists lobbyists and their clients.

- $1.1 billion: Amount to be deposited from Seminole Tribe to Florida government over the next two years under a gambling compact announced last week by Governor Charlie Crist

- $0: Amount coming to state from tribe in the third year.

- 125: The number of miles an offshore oil rig can be to Florida's coastline under Florida law.

- 3: The number of miles an offshore rig can be to Florida's coastline if HB 1219 becomes law.