Contrition, Grimness and Encouragement from Flagler County’s Lawmakers Ahead of Another Messy, Miserly Session

Florida Sen. Tom Leek spoke contritely, then grimly, then encouragingly at Friday’s annual Flagler County legislative delegation meeting, ahead of the legislative session in January. 

The contrition was for the misbehavior of the legislature in the last session, the grimness was about another year of tight budgets, and therefore few legislative appropriations for local governments, and the encouragement was for local officials to make their pitches anyway, as long as they matched that with commitment of their own. 

“I will tell you that, you know, bluntly: last year wasn’t a great look, right? Wasn’t a great look for Republicans,” Leek said. “It wasn’t a great look for state government. There’s animosity between the chambers, animosity between the speaker and the governor, and it just wasn’t a great look. And the result was, we kind of aired our dirty laundry.

It’s not uncommon, he said, but usually the different slides work things out behind closed doors, leaving the public to see the final product. Not this time. And likely not this coming session, either. “The bad news is,” Leek said, “I don’t see it getting much better this year. There are no indications that it won’t be a contentious session going forward.”

That will add to an already pressured budget. “Bluntly,” Leek said, “if you look at the revenue projections, you will see that the growth in our costs are outpacing the growth in our revenue, and at some point in time, those two lines are going to intersect, and we would have a problem. But we will be judicious, and we won’t let that become a problem. Result is some downward pressure on our spending, and I think you’ll continue to see that this year.” 

Leek said the previous session resulted in “your fair share” of dollars (he was being more generous in words than the legislature was in dollars: Palm Coast’s $5 million for wastewater projects was as good as it got, compared to about 25 times that much in the previous two years), “and I think that will happen again.”

Greco assured the audience: “While there may be some tension between chambers, I don’t think there’s tension between us,” he said of Leek. 

Leek had advice for the supplicants: “I like to see each of the requesters have skin in the game,” he said. Don’t just ask for money. Put up some of your own as a share, “so that you’re not coming to the state for 100 percent funding. Because in my experiences, and I think the state’s experience in general is, we find the more you all have skin in the game, the more committed you are to the project, and so if we give money to the project, it’s more likely to be successful because you’re committed.”

Leek likes to see that share at 50 percent. It may not be doable every time, but he wants it as close to that as possible, “so you have to arm us with the tools,” he said. “We have to have the arguments. One of the best tools that you can give us is to say this community is committed to it, so much so that they put 50 percent of their own money in the game, or whatever the number is.” 

“It’s a little awkward coming to these and talking about a handout of things that help us,” Flagler County Commission Chair Andy Dance said before asking for help resurfacing County Road 304 and repairing several bridges,  the construction of the Black Branch North drainage system near the county jail and State Road 11 (the county needs $2.6 million for that), and $548,000 for a disaster resilience staging site for emergency management (the county has a $126,000 in matching dollars). 

Dance also asked for the legislators to rework Senate Bill 180, the controversial measure lawmakers passed last year that eases regulations in the aftermath of disasters, but also extends what amounts to a gag order on almost all local land development regulations for several years. That has hampered local authorities in managing growth, giving developers what local officials fear may be a blank check. 

Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris focused on the city’s infrastructure needs: A $300,000 request (which the city is matching with $200,000) for a stormwater project in the B Section, help with the “choke-point” at Town Center Boulevard and Old Kings Road, along with the widening of Old Kings Road, with a price tag of $30 million. “We don’t have the funds right now designated as a match, but we are using impact fees,” he said. “The design alone is going to be like $6 million.” The city also needs help with a stormwater project in the Woodlands, which often floods during major storms. The city is putting up $500,000 and asking for an equal amount. 

Leek liked the city’s commitment. 

Flagler Beach Commissioner Rick Blehumeur asked for help with the city’s sewer plant (built in 1987), which must meet regulatory improvements to stop discharging treated effluent in the Intracoastal by 2031. But the city needs $1.5 million from the state, matched by an equal amount from the city. He also spoke of the city’s public buildings–police and fire departments, the public works department–whose properties typically flood during emergencies, hampering public services. “The city has applied for a Resilient Florida grant for the construction phase and is awaiting notice of the grant award or rejection,” Belhumeur said, but the city is still asking for $1.5 million for that. 

Bunnell Mayor Catherine Robinson said the city was not requesting anything this year, but then spoke of the challenge of repaving Bunnell’s 26 miles of streets. “We’ve done some micro-paving, but it’s just not taking care of what we need.” Microsurfacing is the band-aid approach Palm Coast has adopted for some of its streets, laying down a sealant of sorts that prolongs the street’s life for a time, but does not address a road’s underlying problems. 

Superintendent LaShakia Moore thanked the legislators for walking back a plan to change school-start hours that would have been costly for the Flagler County district. 

She gave a pointed plug to some of the district’s programs that were briefly on legislators’ lists of cuts last year: “We are also committed to our local initiative of diploma-plus that is ensuring that 100 percent of our students are graduating with a high school diploma, plus AP, AICE, IB, military designation, fine arts, industry certification and more.” Advanced Placement, the Cambridge AICE diploma and the International Baccalaureate program were all at risk of losing funding from the state last year. Leek was interested in the district’s focus on vocational, or trade, education. 

“We have really taken on a huge focus around our diploma-plus initiative to help families understand that all of these opportunities are equally important,” Moore said. “It really depends on where your child wants to go next.  So in our high schools, at both of our high schools, we offer robust programs within the trades. We have fire, we have medical, we have construction, entrepreneurship, and the list goes on.”

Moore was followed by Thomas LoBasso, Daytona State College’s president, who made a pitch for the Daytona Beach campus: The airframe and power plant facility at the airport in Daytona Beach, a $12.2 million request to which the college is committing $2 million. DSC is also requesting $19.4 million, with a $1 million match from the college, for an aerospace and advanced technical education building at the New Smyrna Beach Edgewater campus. 

He had additional requests, all of which Leek described as “things that put you in the best position for success–clear, articulated projects with a match.”