Drew Wilson
Call them sprinkles, jimmies, nonpareils, cachous or hundreds-and-thousands — as long as the check clears, nobody cares. And there will be a lot of checks.
Monday saw the release of the House and Senate supplemental funding lists, the budgetary equivalent of a 5-year-old with a Sweet Factory gift card. It works something like this: Lawmakers grab a fist full of sugar and “sprinkle” it onto whatever projects they want.
Like the confection they’re named for, budget sprinkles come in many shapes, sizes and colors. Here’s the quick-and-dirty, broken down by budget silo:
Note: These charts are best viewed on a desktop/laptop.
Many of the beneficiaries are local project requests that were left on the cutting room floor during regular budget negotiations, such as the $850,000 set-aside to revamp the historic Palladium theatre in St. Petersburg.
Another common occurrence are seven- and eight-figure checks for state colleges and universities. They show up on the bill as “operational enhancements,” which is about as nebulous as it sounds — it’s basically funny money for institutions to use on efforts to boost their rankings, perhaps by poaching professors from prestige universities, or maybe by adding some on-campus flair that awakens the inner niffler in rising college freshman.
With $73.4 million worth of sprinkles, higher ed’s cupcake will have a distinctive crunch.
Sprinkles are no less popular at the inmate canteen, with the House sprinkle list including about $38.1 million for a bonus program targeting high-vacancy facilities. The House pulls half that funding from recurring general revenue and marks the other half down as one-time funding. Representatives are also doling out $2 million in nonrecurring general revenue for private prison operations.
But, as is tradition, infrastructure projects are the big winner in the 2023-24 supplemental funding lists. The category includes a whopping $110 million for projects ranging from $1.5 million for construction work at the Gulf County airport to $15 million to replace the crane at JAXPORT.
The size and scope of sprinkle projects can be dizzying to those uninitiated to Florida’s budget-making process, and Florida Politics doesn’t want to make you mace a tiger a la Del Preston to find the sweets you’re looking for. That’s why we’ve developed our first-ever interactive charts to help you sift through the 2023-24 sprinkle lists.
Here they are for your viewing pleasure:
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Florida Politics’ Digital Services Manager, Daniel Dean, contributed to this report.
