As their protracted budget talks near completion, state lawmakers are earmarking millions of dollars for South Florida projects through last-minute allocations that don’t require agreement between the Senate and House.

Most of the set-asides are for universities, hospitals, infrastructure projects and social services programs across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties.

At large, the supplemental funding allocations, released by Senate and House budget leaders Sunday, include hundreds of projects statewide added outside the main budget process. They’re known colloquially as the “sprinkle list,” as they represent an assortment of often smaller apportionments (compared to others) to regional projects.

Sprinkle list items do not require matching appropriations between chambers; Senate and House allocations stack atop one another when both fund the same initiative.

Among the biggest South Florida winners in this year’s sprinkle list: Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University, the Miami Transplant Institute, and several water transportation and projects stretching from Homestead to Key West.

Some of the items may get nixed by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto pen, particularly those in Miami-Dade, the home county of House Speaker Daniel Perez, with whom DeSantis has had a persistently prickly relationship.

The below appropriations are not an exhaustive list of South Florida set-asides. We’ve only included items totaling $1 million or more.

Miami-Dade

Seated in the Sunshine State’s most populous county, Florida International University is on track to receive $8 million through a House-exclusive appropriation, of which $5.4 million is intended as recurring and $2.6 million is a one-time expenditure.

The funding is tagged for “operation enhancements,” a broad, catch-all designation the Legislature uses to provide flexible funding to schools for day-to-day capacity upgrades.

Miami Dade College secured $6 million from the House for operational enhancements — $5.4 million recurring, $600,000 nonrecurring.

The Miami Transplant Institute, which operates within Miami-Dade County’s public Jackson Health System, landed $2.5 million from the House — six times less than what Miami Sen. Alexis Calatayud and Hialeah Rep. Alex Rizo sought through matching requests. The funding is to cover staff salaries and benefits, operational expenses and support for physician practices that supplement the institute’s work.

The Sylvester Firefighter Cancer Initiative at the University of Miami received $1.5 million from the House to support cancer screening, prevention and treatment programs for firefighters. Miami Sen. Ileana Garcia and Coral Gables Rep. Demi Busatta had requested $3.5 million for the project, with most of the funds going toward research, equipment, supplies, travel, outreach, education and recruitment.

A student transportation safety initiative for Jewish day schools, operated by Miami-Dade-based Agudath Israel of America, secured $2.5 million from the Senate. Doral Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez and Highland Park Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman had requested $3.5 million for the project, which adds to a broader statewide set-aside of $15 million for security guards and transportation safety at Florida’s more than 130 Jewish day schools.

The House also routed $1.5 million toward acquiring “critical infrastructure” to support an affordable housing project by CREI Holdings at a razed trailer park site that drew ample news coverage last year when the company evicted its former tenants. Rodriguez, who sought funding for the project last year too, and Miami Rep. Mike Redondo requested twice the award.

Construction of a new bus station and improvements at the Earlington Heights Metrorail station landed $1 million — $875,000 from the House and $125,000 from the Senate — following matching requests by Miami Gardens Sen. Shevrin Jones and Miami Rep. Ashley Gantt for $1.75 million.

Several Homestead infrastructure projects each received $1 million from the House for upgrades to undersized and aging water mains, a bridge-improvement project at Northeast 18th Avenue and water treatment plant upgrades at Wittkop Park.

Other $1 million cuts went to Citrus Health Network for a crisis stabilization and emergency service project in Hialeah (House), renovations at the Miami Beach Community Health Center (Senate), an expansion to First Tee Miami’s youth character-development program (Senate), and a county artificial firearm detection program (Senate).

Broward County

Just one project in Broward County notched a sizable enough set-aside to make this list: a $3.63 million appropriation from the Senate to Nova Southeastern University’s veteran health initiative.

The funding is roughly half what Calatayud and Dania Beach Rep. Hillary Cassel sought through matching requests late last year for the Davie-headquartered school to cover a program that provides free and low-cost medical, dental, vision, behavioral health and rehabilitative care to veterans and their families.

The proposal also supports Nova’s “Military to Medicine” pipeline program, which helps veterans and active-duty personnel transition into careers in medicine, nursing, dentistry and other health professions.

Palm Beach County

Florida Atlantic University received a combined $7 million — $5 million from the House, $2 million from the Senate — for operational enhancements.

The schools’ Max Planck Florida Scientific Fellows Program, which launched in 2014 and supports advanced neuroscience and biomedical science training, received another $1.11 million from the Senate.

In West Palm Beach, the Cox Science Center and Aquarium secured $2 million from the Senate for facility expansion and science programming enhancements.

And Els for Autism’s specialized recreation complex in Jupiter got $1.5 million from the Senate.

Monroe County

In Florida’s southernmost county, the College of the Florida Keys notched $2.5 million from the Senate for chiller plant infrastructure improvements. Rodriguez and Islamorada Rep. Jim Mooney, who represent Monroe in Tallahassee, had originally asked for $7 million.

The project, according to their requests, is meant to modernize and expand the school’s aging air conditioning infrastructure at its Key West campus, including extending chilled-water lines to the main campus welding lab, which currently lacks air conditioning.

The proposal, sponsored by Rodriguez, is intended to improve the efficiency and reliability of the college’s cooling systems, reduce the risk of climate-related campus shutdowns during the hottest months, and support more than 1,500 students, employees and community members who use the campus and its health care facilities.

The College of the Florida Keys secured $2.5 million from the Senate for chiller plant infrastructure improvements supporting campus operations.

Monroe also received $1.75 million from the House for preservation and rehabilitation-focused renovations of the historic Bruce Hall and Reynolds School

Monroe County received $1.75 million from the House for renovation of historic Bruce Hall and the historic Reynolds School in Key West, aimed at preserving and rehabilitating the landmark structures.

A stormwater pump station and resilience project at Duval Street and Mallory Square in Key West also got $1 million from the Senate, with the funds intended for flood mitigation and other related upgrades.


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