A.G. Gancarski
Northeast Florida legislators have their share of local projects and asks in the House budget. Prominent areas, as one would expect, include education on all levels, as well as social services, and a couple of infrastructural projects.
These aren’t splashy asks; they are quality of life requests, and in some cases (especially that of Lake Ray) they are outside of his district.
Some interesting asks for Northeast Florida House members in the new budget include the following:
Lake Ray wants $8.5 million for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Innovation programming at the University of North Florida.
“This initiative is based on the economic drivers in the region, the support and involvement of local industry, and UNF’s mission to provide the highly-trained workforce required to grow our economy in these focused and highly interrelated areas. The selection of these particular areas is based on the economic realities of Northeast Florida. The AMMI initiative at UNF will provide the necessary funding and infrastructure to bolster relevant industrial research in the existing engineering programs at UNF, and create undergraduate and graduate programs in Manufacturing Engineering, one of only 20 such programs in the country, and the only one in the state of Florida to train the skilled manufacturing workforce of tomorrow,” the case for the bill goes.
Ray, termed out this year, also wants $900,000 for the Beaver Street Enterprise Center. The money will be matched by other public and private sources, and will help “minority-owned businesses and core-city residents seeking job skills and job placement assistance” in that beleaguered Jacksonville neighborhood.
Ray also wants $1 million for Medical Simulation Centers at Florida State College Jacksonville, money to replace outdated equipment. This would go for nursing and clinical practice training, spread across three labs at $300,000 each, with another $100,000 for accessories.
Another request from Ray: almost $3,5 million to replace bridges on Moncrief and Old Kings Roads on Jacksonville’s Northside. These bridges are functionally obsolete, two of many locally.
Charles McBurney requests $1.5 million for the Jacksonville Journey programs Alternatives to Out of School Suspension and the Jacksonville Re-Entry Center, the latter of which helps inmates transition back into normal society.
McBurney also wants $1 million for the USS Adams Museum, intended to be a downtown showplace during Jacksonville’s urban rebirth.
McBurney wants $4 million as well for teacher development grants at the University of North Florida; Reggie Fullwood wants half a million dollars for UNF also, for the school’s Public Service Leadership Program.
Fullwood also wants $2 million for the construction of a new Sulzbacher Center for Women in Jacksonville. The facility is outdated and has a waiting list, and this is a priority for the local non-profit community.
Mia Jones, meanwhile, wants $900,000 for Building a Better Gateway for outpatient treatment services, “funding to renovate and expand the Residential and Outpatient Treatment facilities at our nonprofit which is mostly publicly funded. Located at its current site since 1989, our facilities come with problems old buildings have with heating, a/c, plumbing problems and more. Renovations are needed to make it better suited for the medical/physical needs of low-income patients in treatment.”
The funds will be matched by $900,000 in Jacksonville CDBG money.
Jones also has a request for money for an elementary school coding program in Duval County.
About $100,000 would go to “financially support the implementation of a fully scheduled coding K-5 curriculum at 20 elementary schools in Duval County Public Schools. Students would be exposed to an hour of coding lessons weekly, similar to music and art.”
Jones also wants money for Edward Waters College, almost $67,000 for its Workforce Development Program, which would help the often first-generation college students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Another $11,800 would go to capital needs for this program.
Cyndi Stevenson wants $534,000 for STEM Labs for St. Johns County Elementary and Middle Schools. As the school district attempts to maintain its excellence in light of growth, STEM is seen as a way forward.
Janet Adkins wants $2 million of capital costs for the Nassau County Council on Aging’s Community Life Center. It needs to build a facility for the rapidly growing and aging population of the county.
Adkins also wants $250,000 for an agricultural education pavilion at the Nassau County Fairgrounds, called the Northeast Florida Agricultural Education Multi-Use Facility.
The Florida EPIC (Entrepreneurism, Policy, Innovation, and Commerce) Program at Jacksonville University requires $2 million in state money, according to Travis Cummings and Reggie Fullwood, as a way of helping with STEM education.
Cummings, as well, wants almost $3 million in two separate allocations for the PACE Center for Girls, which helps at-risk young women in Duval and other counties.
