Jesse Scheckner
Florida State Guard operations will be supported through a $23 million earmark in the coming state budget, courtesy of a last-minute Senate set-aside.
The upper chamber allocated the nonrecurring money for operational funding in its end-of-budgeting “sprinkle list.”
The sprinkle list, as its name suggests, is an assortment of supplemental funding initiatives the Legislature compiles as budgeting processes near closure. Items on the list typically provide small apportionments (compared to other earmarks) to regional projects.
By that standard the Florida State Guard funding is an outlier, since it’s for a statewide, volunteer state military force and not a local program.
It’s the third-biggest item on the Senate sprinkle list, behind $25 million for the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund and $78.4 million for nursing home reimbursements.
And notably, it’s markedly less than the $62 million Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed in his “Focus on Fiscal Responsibility” spending plan for equipment, vehicles, debris removal resources and training.
First established during World War II to replace the Florida National Guard when it was federalized, the Florida State Guard had been deactivated for 75 years until the Governor revived it in 2022 to support Florida’s emergency response infrastructure.
Unlike the National Guard, the State Guard is fully state-controlled and cannot be federalized or deployed overseas. Service members assist in natural disaster response, support law enforcement and public safety operations, provide logistical and humanitarian support, and supplement National Guard operations, particularly when federal deployment leaves gaps at home.
In 2023, the Legislature approved a $107 million expansion to the State Guard, which lawmakers last year authorized growing from 400 to 1,500 members. More funds are needed to support a force of that size, DeSantis said in a Feb. 3 memo.
The Governor’s statement came weeks after State Guard Executive Director Mark Thieme told the House Transportation and Economic Development Budget Subcommittee that the force wanted to increase its operations to include medics.
He said the State Guard had medical experts enlisted, but the agency lacked “the authority to be able to bring those medical professionals to bear in local communities.”
Thieme predicted that the State Guard would have close to 1,000 members by June 30 and 1,200 by New Year’s Eve.
