Florida TaxWatch Releases 2018 Budget Turkey Watch Report

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - 

Florida TaxWatch's annual independent review of Florida’s FY2018-19 budget, the Budget Turkey Watch Report, was released today. The report promotes additional oversight and integrity in the state’s budgeting process based on the principle that: because money appropriated by the Legislature belongs to the taxpayers of Florida, the process must be transparent and accountable, and every appropriation should receive deliberation and public debate. 

Budget Turkeys are usually local member projects, placed in the final appropriations bill without being scrutinized and subjected to the budget committee process, or that circumvented established grant and other selection processes. The Budget Turkey label does not signify judgment of a project’s worthiness.Instead, the review focuses solely on the Florida budget process.

The $88.7 billion budget passed by the Florida House and Senate for FY2018-19 contains 87 appropriations items qualifying as Budget Turkeys worth $147.5 million. Since projects were not added to the budget during conference this year, most of these were flagged because they circumvented established selection processes. This includes 56 local transportation projects worth nearly $120 million. These member projects, for which there is no formal evaluation and selection process, bypass the transportation planning process, potentially diverting funds from projects that are in the DOT work program.

New rules governing appropriations projects were adopted last year and have (relatively) limited the number of turkeys.  However, the rules have not limited member projects. This year’s budget contains 517 member projects worth more than $560 million. This brings the two-year total (since the rules were adopted) to more than 1200 members projects worth $1.2 billion. House members filed 1,314 bills (nearly 11 per member) totaling $2.3 billion ($19 million per member), and the 40-member Senate requested 1,453 projects totaling $2.7 billion. House subcommittees approved 702 appropriations project bills and no bills were voted down. In fact, of the approximately 8,100 votes cast, there were a total of three no votes. 

"Since 1983, Florida TaxWatch has used the Budget Turkey Watch Report to encourage a more thoughtful and thorough budget process," said Florida TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic M. Calabro. "While the new rules have limited the number of turkeys, the number of member projects passed this year is troubling. We hope that this report brings light to this important issue and motivates Floridians to hold the government accountable. And with the forecast significant future budget shortfalls, we hope it motivates legislators to adopt our recommendations to limit and better vet member projects, focusing spending on statewide core government functions"

The Governor's historically quick five-day turnaround did not give Florida TaxWatch the time to complete our meticulous review prior to his line-item vetoes. Nevertheless, this report is still being released in order to highlight the large number of member projects and to offer recommendations to improve review of these projects.

Please click here for the 2018 Budget Turkey Watch Report and recommendations for Florida's budget process. Access the Budget Turkey Analysis Supplemental here.