An Introduction to Budget Turkeys and the Sprinkle List

About the Budget Turkey Watch Report

The Budget Turkey Watch report is Florida TaxWatch's annual review of Florida's upcoming budget. The report was started in 1983 and promotes 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 scrutiny. The budget review identifies appropriations that circumvent transparency and accountability standards in public budgeting.

Budget Turkeys are items, usually local member projects, placed in individual line-items or accompanying proviso language that are added to the final appropriations bill without being fully scrutinized and subjected to the budget process.

The Budget Turkey label does not signify judgment of a project’s worthiness. Instead, the review focuses on the Florida budget process, and the purpose of the Budget Turkey label is to ensure that all appropriations using public funds receive the deliberation, debate, and accountability they deserve. While a project may be worthwhile, Budget Turkeys tend to serve a limited (not statewide) area, are often not core functions of government, are more appropriately funded with local or private dollars, and can circumvent competitive bidding or selection as well as oversight and accountability.

Florida TaxWatch is not recommending that the Governor veto any specific project on the Budget Turkey list. We are providing this report to assist the Governor in his budget deliberations, recommending that he not only consider the value and efficacy of a project, but also if it meets turkey-criteria, if it addresses a core state government function, and if it was selected through a fair process that promotes the best interest of taxpayers statewide.

A project that circumvents established review and selection processes or has completed the established process but is funded ahead of much higher priority projects (as determined by the selection process);

Appropriations that are inserted in the budget during conference committee meetings, meaning they did not appear in either the final Senate or House budgets;

Appropriations from inappropriate trust funds; duplicative appropriations; and appropriations contingent on legislation that did not pass; and/or

Appropriations that may have been in the House or Senate budget, but were removed by agreement in conference, only to be added back at the last minute through the supplemental appropriation (“sprinkle”) lists.

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

/ Categories: Research, Budget/Approps, Budget Turkeys

2025 Budget Turkey Watch Report

An analysis of the transparency and accountability of the budget process

Florida TaxWatch’s 2025 Budget Turkey Watch Report delivers an independent, line-by-line review of Florida’s conference budget worth $115.1 billion. It identifies 238 appropriations totaling over $413 million that bypassed established vetting procedures or public scrutiny—designating them as “Budget Turkeys”—and flags an additional $799.5 million in member projects that merit heightened executive review.

The analysis places these findings in the context of a 100-plus-day legislative session marked by deep policy disagreements, a historic budget impasse, and more than 1,600 local member projects exceeding $2 billion. It details how many of these projects circumvent competitive grant processes or displace funds from statewide priorities, cataloguing the most problematic categories: university and college construction, agricultural promotion facilities, local parks and boating projects, transportation earmarks, historic and cultural grants, and water-quality line items redirected to member-specific projects.

Florida TaxWatch recommends that the Governor rigorously evaluate each flagged appropriation for alignment with core state functions, transparency, and return on taxpayer investment—vetoing or redlining as necessary—and urges the Legislature to establish statutory, competitive selection processes for recurring project categories to restore accountability, protect statewide priorities, and ensure prudent fiscal stewardship.

Download Full Report (PDF)