Turkey list: Cape Coral EOC expansion among sprinkle list items flagged by Florida TaxWatch

Image via Cape Coral Fire Department.

Lawmakers budgeted $9 million to expand the Emergency Operations Center in Cape Coral two years after Hurricane Ian struck. But Florida TaxWatch just labeled the member project as a “budget turkey.”

The fiscal watchdog took issue primarily with the fact that lawmakers included the massive spend in the Legislature’s “sprinkle list,” discretionary funding that each chamber of the Legislature budgets in supplemental funding.

The House ultimately dedicated $5.5 million from its funds. The Senate chipped in another $3.5 million from its own similar funding pot for the project.

But Florida TaxWatch has called that entire budget process flawed and recommended that the “sprinkle list” be discontinued entirely.

“It has become tradition, as the very last step in the budget process, for the House and Senate to exchange lists that add hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to the budget with no public or transparent discussion or debate,” the organization’s annual Budget Turkey report explains.

The report flagged 89 member projects, collectively making up nearly $172 million in the state budget, as “turkeys” that Gov. Ron DeSantis should consider for line-item vetoes.

The slight against the Cape Coral project comes as Lee County continues to recover from Hurricane Ian, which made landfall at Cayo Costa in September 2022.

Sen. Jonathan Martin, a Fort Myers Republican, championed the funding request in the upper chamber. Rep. Mike Giallombardo, a Cape Coral Republican, pressed for funding in the House.

A request submitted by Cape Coral City Manager Paul Clinghan said the money would go toward design, permitting and construction costs.

The plan is for the facility to allow consolidation of emergency and disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery operations. The storm-hardened center could serve as a base of operations, with meeting space, showers and needed technology, to coordinate disaster response from that location.

In the wake of Hurricane Ian, the Legislature directed billions in relief and recovery spending to Southwest Florida. Lawmakers from the region, though, stress that the community remains in a rebuilding stature after the storm, and wants to be prepared should a similar disaster strike the coastal community again.