Florida TaxWatch says 2024-25 state budget larded with $854.6M in 'turkeys,' urges vetoes

The $117.5 billion state budget approved by Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature is larded with a record $854.6 million of “turkeys,” hometown projects and programs that Gov. Ron DeSantis should consider vetoing, Florida TaxWatch said Wednesday.

The budget turkey bottom-line is the largest identified by TaxWatch in more than four decades of conducting the annual review of the budget in advance of the governor’s signing the spending plan for the year beginning July 1.

Jeff Kottkamp, executive vice-president of TaxWatch and a former state House member and lieutenant governor, said that the Legislature’s willingness to load up the budget with favored projects drawing little scrutiny reflects a complete, systemic change at the state Capitol.

“It’s a slow drip of culture change,” Kottkamp said, reflecting on earlier years when lawmakers knew they were bending the rules when they tucked a hometown project into the budget. Now, Kottkamp said such spending has become normalized.

'Sprinkle lists' a problem, Florida TaxWatch says

So-called 'sprinkle lists' chocked with millions of state taxpayer dollars are added each year as sweeteners to satisfy individual lawmakers during final budget negotiations.

“We don’t think that sprinkle lists are at all a good idea,” said Kurt Wenner, TaxWatch’s senior vice-president of research, who has watched the state budget evolve over the years.

The biggest budget items singled out were $38.8 million for the University of Florida to acquire 2,658 acres of land just west of Gainesville. The land is within the Hickory Sink ecosystem and eyed by the university as both a conservation area and 36-hole golf course, clubhouse and guest cottages.

A pair of area lawmakers, Sen. Keith Perry, R-Alachua, and Rep. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, were credited with getting the spending into the budget.

Another standout item – $35 million – was for renovations at the landmark Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, used by Flagler College. Lawmakers had doubled the amount of funding sought by two area GOP lawmakers, Sen. Travis Hutson and Rep. Cyndi Stevenson, during last-minute budget negotiations.

All told, the budget includes a record level of so-called member projects – 1,600 of them, totaling $2.8 billion, including money for local ballfields, theaters, historic projects, museums and even $100,000 for a study of leaf blowers.

Each lawmaker equals $17.3 million in hometown projects

TaxWatch’s analysis shows that on average, each member of the 160-member Legislature was able to secure an average of 10 hometown projects worth an average $17.3 million. Ruling Republicans overwhelming gain the biggest share.

In TaxWatch’s definition, turkeys become turkeys largely because they represent budget items added without being fully scrutinized and subjected to review during the legislative session, which ended in March. Also, spending that fails to meet a “core state government function” also risks the turkey label, the organization said.

Legislative leaders didn’t immediately respond to TaxWatch’s findings. But much of the defense by lawmakers historically has been built on the idea that they know best what is needed for their communities, and that a rigid state review process puts too much authority in the hands of government bureaucrats.

Within a Legislature powered by Republican supermajorities, that view has become deeply rooted. The Legislature’s free-spending also has flourished in robust budget years, post-COVID-19.

Session's last hours... 2024 Session: Florida lawmakers hit finish line with votes on budget and tax breaks

DeSantis expected to act soon on budget

DeSantis, who is expected to act on this year’s budget in the coming days, vetoed $510.9 million from last year’s spending plan, at least some of it following the recommendations of TaxWatch.

In Wednesday’s $854.6 million turkey watch unveiling, TaxWatch also took the extra step of highlighting another $912.2 million that, although not meeting its criteria for turkey labeling, still deserves a closer eye by DeSantis, the organization said.

Remarkably, TaxWatch labeled the state’s entire water project list a turkey – all 281 member-requested projects costing $410.3 million. These local water, sewer and resiliency projects failed to go through any kind of coordinated state review and often get doled out to lawmakers with some political muscle, TaxWatch concluded.

“This trend is wholly unsustainable,” Kottkamp said.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on X at @JKennedyReport.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida budget has record level of hometown spending 'turkeys': Report