It may not amount to a lot of money, but the Florida House could soon override more budget vetoes made last summer by Gov. Ron DeSantis. This could set up yet another flashpoint between the governor and the Legislature this year.
The House on Wednesday will consider whether to override about $4.74 million in vetoes made by DeSantis before he signed the current-year state budget into law.
The veto override list contains four projects ranging from $140,000 for a program aimed at preventing homelessness for senior veterans to $2.5 million for a program to remove 29,106 pounds of nitrogen per year from Rockledge’s water supply. Former Rep. Thad Altman championed the Rockledge request.
The Florida Senior Veterans Crisis Fund wanted to use the money in part to hire two additional staff to help wartime veterans gather paperwork to qualify them for a Department of Veterans Affairs benefit for themselves and their surviving spouses. The benefit provides financial assistance for long-term help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring. The funding request was made by Sen. Jennifer Bradley and former state Rep. Sam Killebrew.
The House budget request form notes that “Florida has the 3rd highest Veteran population in the US and without these VA benefits many are forced to go on (Florida’s) Medicaid program, live in nursing homes or even worse become homeless.” The form says that by enrolling people in the federal program, Florida can save between $5 million and $6 million annually in Medicaid.
This will be the second time in a handful of weeks the House has voted on veto overrides. The Legislature voted in late January to override DeSantis’ veto of nearly $57 million from the Legislature’s budget.
House Speaker Danny Perez announced “combined workgroups” before the start of the 2025 session and tasked them with identifying potential vetoes DeSantis made in the state fiscal year (FY) 2024-25 budget for the House to override.
For the overrides to be successful, the Senate must follow suit. The veto process starts in the House because the budget, contained in HB 5001, originated in the House.
The House also is voting on whether to override the veto of $1.1 million to make improvements to the Town of Baldwin’s water and sewer systems.
According to a House report, town staff has in the last year “been in a perpetual state of making costly emergency, and often dangerous, repairs to the Town’s water and sewer mains.
This project would ensure the portions of the water and sewer mains that are susceptible to failure are replaced or rehabilitated, resulting in significantly increased safety and reliability to the water and sewer infrastructure. “ Rep. Dean Black, a Republican from Jacksonville, requested the funding.
The Legislature has for the past decade included funding in the budget for a roster and time management system the Department of Corrections uses for timesheet and payroll data management and did the same in the FY 24-25 budget, including $1 million for the system. DeSantis, though, vetoed the funding. The House vote on overriding that veto, too.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
