Visit Florida could see cuts
Budget proposal includes funding for Space Florida
TALLAHASSEE — The tourism-marketing agency Visit Florida would only be funded for three months and Enterprise Florida wouldn’t get any state money at all as part of a House budget proposal released Tuesday.
The public-private agency Space Florida, meanwhile, would get $12.5 million as part of the House budget plan.
The House’s proposal was released Tuesday by the chamber’s Transportation & Tourism Appropriations Subcommittee. It could be changed by the House in the coming weeks and then subject to negotiations with the Senate.
House Republican leaders in recent years have opposed funding for Visit Florida and for Enterprise Florida, a public-private economic development agency. Scott, who left office in January, battled to maintain funding for the agencies.
Visit Florida came under fire in 2016 when rapper Pitbull revealed he was paid $1 million by Visit Florida for his “Sexy Beaches” ad campaign.
Under the House proposal, Visit Florida would get $19 million, which would cover the tourism agency until Oct. 1. That is when the agency is scheduled to be “sunset” unless it is reauthorized. The House wouldn’t provide any state funding for Enterprise Florida.
“It (Visit Florida) is slated to sunset, and so we are The Wharf Miami in moving north to Fort Lauderdale along the Las Olas Riverfront
funding it, that’s what we’re statutorily bound to do,” said state Rep. Jay Trumbull, a Panama City Republican who chairs the House subcommittee. “Until we see a piece of legislation that continues that, that’s where we’ll stay.”
Enterprise Florida also has been targeted by the House, where leaders have characterized incentives used to lure companies from other states as “corporate welfare.”
The Senate, meanwhile, has moved forward with a bill that would provide $76 million in funding for Visit Florida, matching an amount requested by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Senate bill would also reauthorize — with no end date — the tourism agency in state law.
Also left out of the House panel’s proposal was a continuation of an $85-million-a-year economic-development effort, known as the Job Growth Grant Fund, that was created in a compromise between the House and former Gov. Rick Scott.
In 2017, lawmakers created the Job Growth Grant Fund after a battle between Scott and House leaders about economic-development spending. The fund, which Scott depleted shortly before DeSantis took office, is located in the Department of Economic of Opportunity.
DeSantis has backed keeping the fund, at least for this year.
“If it’s something I don’t think is getting a bang for the buck, I won’t recommend it next year,” DeSantis said in February after including the fund in his $91.3 billion budget proposal. “But I think for this year, it’s something I should see what I can do with it.”
DeSantis has also supported Space Florida as he seeks to make the state a key part of President Donald Trump’s proposed Space Force.
“Space Florida, the entity the Legislature created to grow Florida’s place in the industry, continues to attract new employers and revitalize the market, generating thousands of high-wage jobs and tens of billions of dollars of economic activity,” Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez, a former House member who now chairs the Space Florida Board of Directors, tweeted Tuesday.