Lawmakers approve $90M for dozens of South Florida projects. Will DeSantis veto any?
About $91 million in spending for South Florida local projects — including funding for a new Opa-locka police station, the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and Broward County cold case solving — are tucked inside Florida’s record $101.5 billion state budget that is awaiting approval from Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Buoyed by $10.2 billion in American Rescue Plan funding from Congress and a state revenue rebound, local lawmakers were able to score millions of dollars in funding for more than 80 projects. Among them are senior centers, museums, sewer, water and road projects and educational programs that help boost local governments in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties.
But the governor’s veto power, as it does every year, looms over these projects.
Some of the projects funded this year were also funded by the Legislature last year but ended up on DeSantis’ $1 billion veto list last June as he looked for ways to blunt the state’s economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think for some of our municipalities, it’s been a while since they’ve had any state investment,” said Rep. Vance Aloupis, R-Miami. “So, for us to be able to secure state investment and hopefully make it through the governor’s veto, I think it is going to be really important for them.”
On the line in South Florida are projects like $6.7 million in so-called PACE programs which would help 200 sick, elderly Broward and Miami-Dade individuals qualify for comprehensive at-home and community-based care.
A lot of the projects also deal with infrastructure and construction: The Underline, the 10-mile outdoor linear park that is planned to stretch from downtown Miami to Dadeland under the tracks of the Metrorail, got $3 million in this year’s budget. The long-awaited Ludlam Trail linear park, which includes 950 rental apartments, retail and grounds with a bike trail, pool deck and dog park, got $1 million. A $3.6 million request to build a new Opa-locka police station, whose daily operations are “hindered due to the presence of a school in the building,” was funded at $1.25 million.
There are also millions of dollars in water and drainage projects, from $1.5 million to replace aged water and sewer lines for five streets in the Golden Pines neighborhood between Coral Gables and Coconut Grove and $400,000 for stormwater projects in Coral Gables and Doral to a $250,000 drainage project in Cutler Bay and $350,000 to back-fill the eastern portion of the S-20 Collector Canal and re-create historically existing Everglades wetlands in South Miami-Dade County.
Lawmakers also included $114,589 to allow the Broward County Sheriff’s office to investigate approximately 450 cold cases over the next three years with new DNA technology and $158,184 to launch a pilot program at the Broward Addiction Recovery Center that will help treat individuals suffering from severe opioid use disorder with the use of Buprenorphine.
And in Monroe County, lawmakers secured $1 million for a mobile vessel pump-out program in Key Largo to assist boaters and $500,000 for the county’s Keys Area Health Education Center, among other projects.
The fate of all of these projects is not yet clear. Last year, DeSantis had warned that the pending cuts would be the “veto equivalent of the Red Wedding from ‘Game of Thrones,’ ” referring to a dramatic scene form the HBO show in which some of the main characters are killed.
But this year, the governor has been mum on his intentions as he faces a record $101.5 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.
Some of South Florida’s projects
SEED School of Miami, $9.1 million
FIU CASE building remodel and renovation, $7.1 million
All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), $6.7 million
Florida International University FIUnique, $3.9 million
University of Miami Medical Training and Simulation Laboratory, $3.5 million
The Urban League of Broward County, Inc., $3.1 million
The Underline Multi-Use/Multimodal corridor in Miami-Dade, $3 million
Little Havana Pedestrian Priority Zones, $3 million
City of Hialeah — Elder Meals Program, $2.1 million
University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center for the purpose of firefighters’ cancer research, $2 million
University of Miami Department of Psychology, $1.8 million
City of Miami, Badia Senior Center, $1.7 million
Miami Dade College land and facilities for Kendall Campus, $1.6 million
Miami Golden Pines Neighborhood Improvements, $1.5 million
Miami Springs East Drive Stormwater and Road Improvement, $1.5 million
Feeding South Florida, $1.5 million
University of South Florida/Florida Mental Health Institute, $1.4 million
Our Pride Academy Inc., $1.2 million
City of Opa-locka Police Station, $1.1 million
The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis — Spinal Cord and Traumatic Brain research, $1 million
City of Miami Springs — South Royal Poinciana Median, $1 million
Ludlam Trail Corridor Miami-Dade, $1 million
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine - Florida Stroke Registry, $1 million
Monroe County mobile vessel pump-out program, $1 million
Mote Marine Coral Restoration Program, $1 million
The Overtown Youth Center, $1 million
Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Standby Power System Repair and Hardening, $994,792
Hialeah Water and Sewer Capital Project, $935,000
Windley Key & Key Heights Affordable Housing Project, $750,000
Aging and Disability Resource Center of Broward County, Inc Provider Service Area 10, $681,080
Monroe County’s Keys Area Health Education Center, $500,000
Brain Bank — Alzheimer’s Disease Research for Mount Sinai, $500,000
Miami Zoo, $500,000
New World School of Arts, $500,000
Sunny Isles Beach Pedestrian Bridge, $500,000
North Miami Beach NE 153rd Street Roadway Improvement, $495,000
Aventura Curbing of Swale Flooding on Country Club Drive, $470,000
Miami Lakes Royal Oaks First Addition Drainage Improvement Project, $440,220
Broward Health Integrated Medication Assisted Treatment Response, $426,604
Mentoring Tomorrow’s Leaders — Broward County Public Schools, $400,000
Jewish Community Services of South Florida — Nutritional Equity for Seniors Keeping Kosher, $400,000
College of the Florida Keys building renovation project, $384,026
Coral Gables — Coral Way and Granada Boulevard hardening and intersection improvements, $375,000
West Miami Water Improvement Project Phase II, $350,000
Miami-Dade County S-20 Collector Canal Everglades Wetlands Restoration Project, $350,000
ARC Broward Skills Training — Adults with Disabilities, $350,000
JARC Florida Community Works — Palm Beach and Broward counties, $335,000
Little Havana Activities and Nutrition Centers of Dade County, $334,770
West Park neighborhood Traffic Calming Plan Phase 1, $300,000
El Portal Horace Mann Middle School Traffic Calming, $300,000
Homestead Water Tower Pump Station, $300,000
Wayne Barton Study Center Academy Enrichment Program, $300,000
New Horizons After School/Weekend Rehabilitative program, $300,000
Chabad of Kendall/Friendship Circle Community Crisis LifeLine, $289,000
Homestead Public Library construction, $250,000
Harry S Truman Little White House exterior painting and repair project, $250,000
Broward Children’s Center Medically Complex Young Adults, $250,000
University of Miami HIV/AIDS research at Center for AIDS Research, $250,000
FIU The Washington Center Scholarships, $250,000
Cutler Bay Community Drainage Project, $250,000
Memory Disorder Clinic — Miami Jewish Health, $222,801
City of West Park Youth Crime Prevention, $200,000
Coral Gables Galiano Street & Madeira Avenue Stormwater project, $200,000
Doral Stormwater Improvements, $200,000
Casa Valentina — Foster Care to Independent Living, $175,000
Areawide Council on Aging of Broward County, $167,292
Broward County Long Acting Injectable Buprenorphine Pilot Program, $158,184
Miami Beach Senior Center — Jewish Community Services of South Florida, Inc., $158,367
Centro Mater after school and recess program, $153,480
Palmetto Bay Sub-basin 61 Improvements, $150,000
City of West Park — Mental Health Initiative, $150,000
City of Pembroke Pines License Plate Reader Project, $125,000
Broward County Sheriff’s Office — Solving cold cases using new DNA technology, $114,480
Homestead Automatic Flushing System, $100,000
City of West Park — senior programming, $100,000
The Lotus House Women’s Shelter Education & Employment Program, $100,000
City of Opa-locka Senior Programming, $100,000
West Miami Community Center, $69,071
Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, $66,501
Village of Biscayne Park EOC generator and recreational lighting, $40,000
Seymour Gelber Adult Day Care Program — Jewish Community Services of South Florida, Inc., $23,234