Governor Rick Scott’s has signed a $74.5 billion dollar budget and vetoed several projects in the Big Bend area as well.
Florida State University saw several of its projects vetoed, including $5 million for maintenance, a $2.5 million allocation for FSU’s reading research center, and funds for additional primary care residency slots for medical school graduates. Meanwhile, a million-dollars’ worth of water infrastructure projects in Monticello, Gretna and Blountstown were killed. Representative Allen Williams says those vetoes are contradictory to the Governor’s message of trying to grow jobs:
“And when you talk about economic development, what better way to spur economic development than to make sure you have a water infrastructure system in place that would form the basis for all future construction in our communities?” He said.
Governor Rick Scott also killed water projects in other parts of the state, and tossed a $200 thousand dollar mobile health unit for Gadsden County for the third year in a row.
Only one Leon County project got axed: a $100,000 dollar allocation for the Joseph Franklin House, the new home of the Tallahassee NAACP. That project was also on the list of so-called "budget Turkey's" by the watchdog group Florida TaxWatch.
The group identifies a "turkey" as a spending project that was either added into the budget at the last minute or never heard during the legislative committee process.
