FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
By JIM TURNER
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, June 18, 2015………. Schools, health care, prisons, the environment and tax cuts get a lot of headlines when it comes to putting together the state’s annual spending plan.
But with lawmakers ready to vote Friday on a $78.7 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, here are some other issues in the proposed spending plan:.
‘MA’ BARKER’S LAST HOME: The budget includes $250,000 for a two-story house in Marion County where Arizona Donnie “Ma” Barker — the mother of members of the Depression-era Barker-Karpis Gang — was killed in 1935 amid a shootout with members of the FBI.
Efforts are underway to make the one-time gangster hideout a museum.
The money would come out of the Land Acquisition Trust Fund, which will handle money voters last year overwhelmingly said they wanted to go for land and water conservation and maintenance.
Trust-fund money also was eyed for projects such as restoration of the St. Marks Lighthouse in Wakulla County ($250,000) and restoration of Ponce de Leon Hotel at Flagler College in St. Augustine ($2 million).
Another $112,500 from the trust fund would go to help renovate the historic Fulford-By-The-Sea Monument in North Miami Beach. Gov. Rick Scott last year vetoed a similar proposal for funding to improve the 90-year-old subdivision entryway fountain.
HISTORIC AMNESTY: Lawmakers are considering a one-time amnesty program for people who may have somehow, let’s say inadvertently, gotten hold of an object of historical or archaeological value that had been on land owned or controlled by the state.
The budget includes $1.1 million — through the Land Acquisition Trust Fund — to have the Department of State, working with the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, study the feasibility of implementing such a program.
The Department of State would have until Oct. 15 to advise Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders if they believe the amnesty program should go forward.
COLLEGE STUDIES: Florida Polytechnic University is slated to get $1.5 million to help all state campuses crack down on hazing.
The school, Florida’s newest university, is directed to quickly get access to an already developed and online anti-hazing course that would be administered to all incoming freshmen this fall in the state university system.
Meanwhile, Florida A&M University would get $1 million to implement a Board of Governors-backed plan that seeks to improve graduation rates and the employability of graduates.
INSECT BITES: Lawmakers are taking a $500,000 swat at figuring out techniques and pesticides to control “biting arthropods.”
The line item from the General Inspection Trust Fund goes to support researchers at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences /Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory. Also, the budget would allow other Florida’s public universities and colleges to get grants for research, which can look into ways to prevent mosquito-borne illnesses.
ALLIGATOR MARKETING: Once on Scott’s list of threatened species, lawmakers have again designated $150,000 from the State Game Trust Fund to the Department of Agriculture’s alligator marketing.
Scott vetoed such a line item in 2011, highlighting the expense as budget fat after telling The Wall Street Journal, “We’re not doing alligator marketing, things like that.”
Scott has been kinder in more-recent years after it was pointed out that the marketing money comes voluntarily from alligator farmers.
BEEF MARKETING: Lawmakers are beefing up a $12 million portion of the budget intended for agricultural promotions.
A $1 million line goes toward programs that not only expand uses of beef and beef products, but can also “strengthen the market position of Florida’s cattle industry in this state and in the nation.”
FREE ORANGE JUICE: A $250,000 allocation is set aside for providing free samples of the Florida staple at the state’s highway welcome centers along Interstates 10, 75 and 95 and on U.S. 231.
The money will come from the Citrus Advertising Trust Fund. Lawmakers overall included $28.4 million from the trust fund and $2.75 million in general revenue for citrus advertising and promotions.
SEE THE SUNSHINE STATE: The budget includes marketing money aimed at getting Floridians to visit other parts of the state.
Visit Florida, the state’s tourism-marketing arm, is getting $2 million to contract with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association to “promote Florida tourism by residents of the state.”
The marketing campaign earmark, which will require a private match, requires Visit Florida to develop the in-state tourism marketing and promotions.
DUFFERS INSURANCE: Golf balls may have a better chance of staying dry — as long as drives and chips stay on or near the fairway — at the city owned Cocoa Beach Country Club, which juts out on a peninsula into the Banana River Lagoon.
At the request of House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, the budget includes $2.2 million for an upland seawall. Crisafulli had requested $2.5 million.