The Florida Senate voted Wednesday to continue paying into a state emergency fund despite concerns that officials have racked up a $573 million immigration tab on the taxpayer dime without legislative knowledge.
The DeSantis administration has spent $405 million from that fund in six months, thousands of which went to private jet flights and restaurant meals, state records show.
Democrats tried to amend legislation (SB 7040) reauthorizing the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund to strengthen the requirements needed for the administration to dip into the account but failed.
Instead, the original form of the bill cleared the Floor in a 29-10 vote.
“Recreating this trust fund will assure that this state is prepared to respond to disasters until Dec. 31, 2027,” said bill sponsor and Senate Appropriations chair Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater. He referred to the fund’s new expiration date if his bill is signed by the governor.
Any of the Democrats’ problems with the fund could be taken up next session, Hooper said, arguing that would be the “perfect opportunity to really dig into” how the state handles emergencies.
The fund allows the governor to quickly spend money during declared emergencies without legislative approval. Florida has been under a standing state of emergency for immigration since January 2023.
Will the legislature keep paying for the fund?
If lawmakers want to continue the fund, both chambers must approve its reauthorization by Feb. 17 — exactly four years after its creation in 2022.
But halfway through the session, and six days before the expiration date, the House still hasn’t scheduled its version of the bill for a committee hearing.
This could be due to the recent scrutiny of the fund because of its heavy spending. Last week, the Florida Division of Emergency Management revealed that it had spent $573 million on immigration enforcement from the fund since its creation.
Some $405 million of that came in the past six months, the Phoenix first reported. Hundreds of thousands of those dollars went to private jet flights to and from the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility and 55 restaurants in the Tallahassee area. FDEM says the spending was above aboard.
But Democratic Senate Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton had suggested restrictions on when the governor’s agencies could pull from the trust — although her proposal failed along party lines.
The amendment said that if the governor wants to repeatedly call for the use of emergency funds for anything other than a natural disaster, the Legislature’s joint budget commission would have to approve it. That’s a House-Senate panel that reviews interim spending requests.
“I support the right of the governor to use emergency trust fund dollars to protect our state from hurricanes, natural disasters, and real emergencies,” Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith said. “But that’s not what we have seen.”
“We don’t have the appropriate guardrails on the emergency trust fund. And as a result, the spending has been off the rails,” he added.
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