Region’s lawmakers sprinkle budget with local projects

TALLAHASSEE — A year after getting $20 million in state money for a downtown campus, the University of Central Florida could receive millions more for new buildings, research centers, business initiatives and a program to help veterans.

The projects are just a slice of the tens of millions of dollars in local spending items added to the budget by lawmakers this year, despite new rules imposed by the House to make them more transparent.

Whether the UCF construction or any of the other projects get funded depends on final budget negotiations between the House and the Senate in the next three weeks. But for UCF, there is $3 million for a College of Nursing building, $3 million for a research facility, $3 million for a business incubator pro-

gram and $10 million to renovate an engineering building — all included in the budget passed by the Senate on Wednesday.

UCF spokesman Dan Holsenbeck said lawmakers haven’t approved as much funding for capital improvements in recent years, so universities need to ask for local funding projects. UCF’s Board of Trustees has asked for the funding for the buildings for several years. The College of Nursing school is slated to be built near the Medical City area.

“We have such a large school and it has been very successful in all of its graduation rates and has a great reputation,” he said. “There’s just no question about the need for additional nurses.”

Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, pushed for funds for the College of Nursing and research facility buildings, but his top priority was money for UCF’s Restores program, which helps treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The program recently began helping surviving victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre and first responders.

Along with Rep. Mike Miller, R-Orlando, a main sponsor of the UCF Restores project bill, Smith was able to get $2 million for the program in the Senate budget and $1.25 million in the House spending plan.

Local projects — known as turkeys in Tallahassee and pork in Washington — often have been inserted into the budget late in the process with little public discussion in recent years.

In 2015, when House Speaker Richard Corcoran was the House’s chief budget negotiator, lawmakers padded the budget with $300 million in projects in a midnight meeting that helped lawmakers reach an agreement between the chambers.

This year, however, Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, pushed through new rules in the House requiring each local project to be filed as its own bill early in the process.

“Every year people would look at the budget and say, ‘How on Earth did the state decide to fund that?’ ” said Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford. “This year because you had to defend all of those projects, people actually understood the intent, where it was coming from and what that money should be used for and how it really related to a compelling state interests.”

He has about $9.4 million in local project funding in either the House or the Senate budgets, including $2 million to help pay for construction and refurbishment of the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens and a $2 million upgrade for Seminole County’s emergency management system.

Other projects still alive in the budget for Central Florida include: $5 million to clean up Lake Apopka; $500,000 to eliminate septic tanks in Casselberry; $1 million for the revitalization of downtown St. Cloud; and $250,000 to help fund construction of a new discovery center at the Orlando Science Center.

Not everyone is convinced the House’s new rules will work out as planned. Smith noted that upcoming budget talks with the Senate will provide the true test and that lobbyists still hold plenty of power in the Capitol.

“I think the rules are good if they are actually effective at curbing the influence of special interests and lobbyists and backdoor deals,” Smith said. “If anyone thinks that special interests ... don’t have any influence in the process now they’re very sorely mistaken.”

Senate leaders, in fact, have been resistant to Corcoran’s rules over local projects, even threatening to sue the House at one point because the rules unconstitutionally imposed restrictions on fellow lawmakers.

A joint rule was eventually worked out to pave the way for budget talks, but Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, has defended lawmakers’ prerogative to secure funding for projects in their districts.

“I consider the words ‘member project’ to be a very positive affirmation of our appropriations authority, and I will defend [them] as long as I’m in the process,” Negron said.