Gov. Rick Scott’s Monday turkey hunt went farther afield than even Tax Watch had recommended, and a couple more Okaloosa and Walton county projects than expected got killed by his veto.
Funding for projects labeled “turkeys” by Florida Tax Watch, including $1.75 million for the Okaloosa County Health Department and $85,635 for a grant to the county’s library cooperative, were cut by Scott from the state budget.
But so was $1 million for a Fort Walton Beach Medical Center crisis stabilization unit and $200,000 for the Northwest Florida Ballet Academie. Florida Tax Watch had nothing bad to say about those two projects in an annual Turkey Watch report it published Thursday.
Scott said the library grant request “circumvented the established grant review process” but Vicky Stever, with the Okaloosa County Public Library Cooperative, said the money budgeted was taken from the cooperative “as a result of a filing error made a couple years ago.”
“I’m disappointed for the folks in Okaloosa County who are not going to be able to get our library service back to where we wanted it to be,” Stever said.
Walton County, which had high hopes of getting an industrial park project in Mossy Head off the ground in fiscal 2013-14, was “deeply disappointed” by Scott.
The governor not only ripped $1.8 million for Mossy Head Industrial Park infrastructure out of the state’s budget, but also cut funding for a wastewater treatment plant in Mossy Head.
County Commissioner Bill Imfeld expressed the county’s dismay in a prepared statement.
He said county officials were “deeply disappointed by the governor’s veto of the Mossy Head projects” and will seek funding again next year.
“Since these projects mean immediate jobs, we will attempt to move forward in the interim to determine what county resources might be available to at least partly phase in these important economic projects,” he said.
Walton County also lost out on $1 million to extend water lines along U.S. Highway 98 and $500,000 to conduct an environmental assessment of the county’s unique coastal dune lakes.
Scott said the budget requests for the wastewater treatment project, the water line extension project and the environmental assessment failed to present “demonstrable improvement” for the “statewide water supply.”
State Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, had discussed recently the critical importance of funding a crisis stabilization unit at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.
The unit would receive patients with mental health issues detained under the Baker Act, something desperately needed in the wake of Fort Walton Beach’s Bridgeway Center’s closing the doors at its receiving facility.
“We want to make sure there is a secure unit and better stabilization for Baker Act patients,” Gaetz said.
But Scott vetoed the $1 million Gaetz had placed in the budget.
It was vetoed because the budget item “earmarked a localized area for a specific provider of services with no statewide benefit,” Scott said in a signed document outlining his vetoes. Also, Scott said, “approval would circumvent the competitive bid process.”
Okaloosa County Health Department head Dr. Karen Chapman had expressed hope that $1.75 million set aside in the budget would allow the agency to establish two mobile dental units and one mobile medical unit.
There was also money in that line item for much needed renovations for aging health department offices in Crestview and Fort Walton Beach.
Scott said in his veto message “the state budget already includes funding of $7.5 million for maintenance and repair of county health departments.”
Carrie Ziegler, assistant director at the Department of Health in Okaloosa County, said “we are disappointed that we will not be able to expand the access to care for the people of Okaloosa County.”
“We certainly appreciate being considered for the funding and understand the governor’s difficult task of prioritizing state funding needs,” Ziegler said in an email.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.