(The Center Square) – A report released by a Florida-based, taxpayer group found 242 appropriations worth $416.1 million that bypass or violate established budget procedures or escaped legislative or public view.
The annual Budget Turkey Watch Report, which has been released annually by Florida TaxWatch since 1983, is an independent review of the state’s budget that accounts for these projects it calls “budget turkeys.”
The report also highlights another fiscal issue: member projects for a particular district.
According to the report, each member of the Legislature had 10 of these member projects worth $17 million per representative or senator, with some members allocating more funding than others. State taxpayers will fund 1,600 local member projects worth more than $2 billion.
That’s a massive increase from fiscal 2017, when only $400 million in member projects were authorized by lawmakers.
Florida TaxWatch says $799.5 million of these member projects “merit extra scrutiny and close gubernatorial review.”
“While we commend the Florida Legislature for constructing a smaller budget than last year’s by approximately $3.5 billion, Florida TaxWatch encourages Governor DeSantis to provide ‘especially close scrutiny’ to the $799.5 million in specific line-items identified in our report,” said Florida TaxWatch vice president and general counsel Jeff Kottkamp. “Moreover, while a project may be worthwhile, items identified as Budget Turkeys tend to serve a limited – not statewide – area, are often not core functions of state government, are more appropriately funded with local or private dollars and circumvent well established budget procedures, competitive selection, oversight and accountability.”
A big example were local transportation outlays that circumvented the Florida Department of Transportation’s Work Program and its vetted and comprehensively planned projects. There were 144 of these worth $210.9 million, with only $10.4 million coming from general revenue. The rest came from state transportation funds generated by fuel tax revenue which the report says can crowd out vetted Transportation Department priorities.
For higher education, 26 member projects (19 at universities and eight at state colleges) totaled $150.8 million and circumvented the Public Education Capital Outlay selection process.
Another example with member projects were $13.2 million for 18 local parks that didn’t go through several competitive grant programs administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. These grants can assist local governments with the acquisition and development of land for public, outdoor recreation.
Similarly, there were seven projects worth nearly $11 million that bypassed the Florida Wildlife and Fisheries’ competitive boating and waterways grant programs.
According to the state constitution, DeSantis has the ability to line-item veto appropriations, with a two-thirds majority in both chambers required to override the actions of his pen.
According to Florida TaxWatch, a “budget turkey” is defined in several ways. They include:
• A project that circumvents established review and selection processes or has completed the established process but is funded ahead of much higher priority projects (as determined by the selection process).
• Outlays inserted during conference committee meetings, which means they didn’t appear in either the final Senate or House budget proposals.
• Appropriations that might have been in the House or Senate budget, but were removed by agreement in conference, only to be added back at the last minute through the supplemental appropriation lists, also known as sprinkle lists.
