Florida’s funds to purchase land for conservation might run out

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott and the state Cabinet may spend about $8.5 million next week to conserve thousands of acres of land owned for decades by two ranching families. Such deals have become a widely used strategy in recent years to keep land from being developed.

But the program that would pay for the deals in Okeechobee and Highlands counties, known as the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program, could be out of money by 2018, even with funds carried over from the current year’s budget.

“You’ll see easements proposed for conservation until at least until the end of this calendar year,” John Browne, land programs administrator for the Florida Forest Service, told aides to Scott and the Cabinet during a meeting Wednesday. “After that, it will be kind of questionable.”

He said after the meeting he isn’t worried about the program’s future. “The constituency that we support, they’re very open about it, they love the program, they will continue to lobby, we’ll continue to push for it,” Browne said. “This just happened to be a year where there were other things that were determined to be more important.”

In the 2017-2018 budget the Legislature approved, $10 million is set aside for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program and nothing for the Florida Forever land acquisition program, which once got $300 million a year. The budget is still subject to Scott’s approval. Florida voters in 2014 approved a constitutional amendment designed to set aside money for land and water conservation.

A large chunk of money in the new budget would go into a reservoir (SB 10) and other Everglades work totaling $155 million. Money would also go to beach projects and maintaining the state’s natural springs. Another $170 million would go to debt payments, while agency operations would get $28 million and staff salaries and benefits would take up $164 million.

“I don’t buy the theory that it’s the Everglades bill that is the reason the Legislature couldn’t fund land conservation,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida and a prominent environmental lobbyist.