TaxWatch Urges Scott To Veto $121 Million In ‘Turkeys’ – $3 Million For Local Projects

May 27, 2014

There are $121 million in budget projects that Florida TaxWatch says Gov. Rick Scott needs to strike with his line-item veto. In releasing its annual list of budget “turkeys”, TaxWatch officials urged Scott to veto 107 projects from a 431-page, $77.1 billion fiscal plan that lawmakers approved early this month.

In Escambia County, TaxWatch says Scott should veto $500,00 for a Smart Horizons online career education program and $2 million allocated to ARC Gateway for a job placement program.

In Santa Rosa County, TaxWatch targeted a half million dollar Andrews Institute Foundation Eagle Fund.

Scott has until June 4 to act on the budget, which will take effect with the start of the new fiscal year July 1.

“Florida TaxWatch has once again shown,” Senate President Don Gaetz said in a release, “that it is possible to be absent all year long from any engagement in the budget process, do no research into the merits of any appropriation, utter not one word of testimony on any proposal or alternative and still convince well-meaning people to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep a well-paid staff employed to absolutely no positive effect other than to get mentioned in one news cycle.”

Kurt Wenner, TaxWatch’s vice president for tax research, said the projects on the list aren’t being questioned on their merits, but rather for failing to go through the normal budget process.

“There were an awful lot of member projects in the budget this year,” Wenner said. “I think everybody knew there were going to be, there was more money. The Legislature did do a pretty good job of getting a lot of them in the budget early.”

Wenner said the budget would never get done if there wasn’t backroom dealing. But the group is opposed to new projects being introduced during those talks.

The business-backed organization uses two main criteria to select turkeys: first, whether the project was inserted into the budget during the final negotiations between the House and the Senate; and second, whether the spending was requested by a state agency.

Last year, TaxWatch recommended $106 million in cuts through 107 separate line items. Scott vetoed 71 of the items, worth $71.1 million, as part of his $368 million in cuts from the budget.

Comments

2 Responses to “TaxWatch Urges Scott To Veto $121 Million In ‘Turkeys’ – $3 Million For Local Projects”

  1. JSCS on May 29th, 2014 9:03 am

    Not knowing when the projects were introduced the $2 M for ARC Gateway in Escambia is a wonderful project.
    The half mil for Andrews Institute in Santa Rosa will benefit many people.
    So much money is wasted that it is a shame that worthwhile projects are rejected while projects that benefit few are accepted.

  2. Mark t on May 28th, 2014 12:09 pm

    Oops,, Mr Gaetz is gonna be in trouble now !!

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News