Florida Legislative Appropriations for St. Johns County

The Regular Session of the 2025 Florida Legislative Session opens March 4 so it’s time to start paying attention to bills important to St. Johns County!

Yes, there have been special sessions to address specific topics (i.e., Immigration) but the full regular session doesn’t open until March.

While there will be many bills to follow through the Legislative Session, one of the important items for St. Johns County residents is, what funding will we receive this year for local projects?

At the conclusion of session each year, we like to hear how much money our Legislative Delegation was able to secure for local projects. For example, in June of 2024, the County announced that for the 2025 fiscal year we had received $26.4 Million in state funding for 5 local projects. But, have you ever wondered how that happens?

I thought I’d share the process using a real life example of a project important to any of us who utilize the World Commerce Center corridor. Let’s follow it through!

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Background

For St. Johns County, preparation for the session usually begins in December. That’s when the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meet to review and vote on the Legislative Priorities for the upcoming session.

These priorities come in from a variety of sources but ultimately are consolidated and presented to the Commissioner’s for a vote. The usual process in St. Johns County has County staff preparing a list of priorities and presenting to the Commissioners for their review and approval. That list is created from recommendations not just from county departments but from representatives of the community on various committees.

The Board of County Commissioners votes on the Priorities and the next step is to present to our Legislative Delegation when they meet in the County. Timing of the Delegation meeting varies. If Session is beginning in January (during election years) the Delegation meets in December. In 2025 Session begins in March so the Delegation meeting was scheduled for January.

This year the process for approving the County’s priorities worked a little differently. In an unusual move, at the first Board of County Commissioner’s meeting after the general election, newly appointed BOCC Chair Krista Joseph invited Representative Kim Kendall’s delegate, Tatum Wang, to read a letter from Representative Kendall with a recommendation for one of our Transportation Priorities.

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Proposed Solution

During her campaign, Representative Kendall had promised a solution to the growing traffic issues at the I-95 and International Golf Parkway exchange. She worked hard to find a solution and her proposal was presented at the November 19 meeting by Ms. Wang along with a request to include this solution in the County’s Legislative Priorities for 2025 as part of the Top 5 Transportation Priorities

There was some discussion about how this may impact the existing top 5 Transportation Priorities for the County. In particular, Commissioner Whitehurst was concerned that we not do anything to impact currently approved and funded projects in the Top 5 by bumping with a project that is not yet funded. Ms. Wang countered that the project was already there, and just needed a change request. After some discussion about the confusion, the County Administrator confirmed that the project is NOT in the Top 5 priorities.

 After the confusing discussion about whether it was already in the priorities or not, consensus was reached have staff bring back more information in the Legislative Priorities discussion in December.

You can watch that discussion here: Initial Presentation

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Legislative Priorities

Moving forward to the December Legislative Priorities discussion December 17, our County Director of Transportation, Dick D’Souza, presented the Transportation Priorities. He was joined by an FDOT representative who provided some context about the funding of projects. While there are funded projects that impacted International Golf Parkway, the interchange at I-95 was not on the list of funded projects.  He also clarified that normally Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) funding is not used for Interstate projects as there is other funding available for those type of projects. That created the opportunity for Representative Kendall to appear in person to present her proposal on the changes to the I-95 and International Golf Parkway interchange.

This was another unusual move on this project. We don’t normally see our Representatives involved in the Prioritization of items they will then be requesting on our behalf.

Representative Kendall’s proposal involves a change order to a $4 Million project to address the light at Buc-ee’s and replace it with a $40 Million dollar project to re-do the interchange. Her proposal involved obtaining Federal funding to support the project.

She had discussed this with Representative John Rutherford who advised this is typically an 80/20 split which translates into a Federal request for $32 Million and a State request for $8 Million. (Remember those numbers.)

Representative Kendall was asking the Commission for a “heavy lift” with a letter of support for this project and to shift the existing county transportation priorities to make this happen.

During commissioner’s discussion after presentation of the transportation priority list, it was made clear that the item must be on the top 5 priority list to be considered for the appropriations. Eventually it was added as item 6, that could be considered item 5.

The proposed change includes adding a new entry ramp from the east, for traffic headed south (a change from having to turn left onto the southbound ramp) and creating an extended exit ramp from the north, so traffic would cross IGP and turn onto World Commerce Parkway to access Buc-ee’s and Costco.

You can watch the presentation here: Priority Presentation

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Legislative Delegation

On January 10, the Legislative Delegation for St. Johns County convened, and Chair Joseph formally presented the County priority list. Commissioner Taylor took the opportunity to address the specific request for the funding for I-95 and International Golf Parkway.

That started the ball rolling for Representative Kendall to file a request for the Appropriations of funding for the project.

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Appropriations Process

There is a defined process for submitting an Appropriations request. All the steps can be found here: Florida House Appropriations Process

There are rules defined about how to submit, what can be submitted, and guidance on how to complete the forms. All appropriation requests for this session were to be submitted by 5:00 February 14 so we can now see all the submissions. You can search the list here: List of Submitted Appropriations Projects

These steps even include an Attestation by the Representative (under penalty of perjury) that all the information submitted is correct! A very thorough process!

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But let’s keep following our I-95/IGP interchange project through the pipeline!

The County Government Affairs department works with our Legislative Delegation to prepare the request for appropriations.

Our County staff presented a request for $6 Million for a Fixed Capital Outlay.

The total cost of the project was noted as $40 Million with $6 Million coming from the State and $32 Million coming from Federal funds (an 80/15 split) and local funds of $2 Million. The $2 Million was noted that it was not guaranteed but that if state and federal funding were received, the county would provide $2 Million as a local match. (Remember Representative Kendall had talked about an 80/20 split of $32 Million Federal funding and $8 Million State funding.)

The County noted that the Construction/Renovation/Land/Planning Engineering costs for the project are $8 Million.

The request also noted that a study had not yet been done but that FDOT has directed funds to a study anticipated to start in the spring of 2025.

When we look at the Appropriations request submitted, we see there were some changes from what was submitted by the County.

The request for a Fixed Capital Outlay is now $3.5 Million, not $6 Million.

The Total Cost of the Project is the same, $40 Million but the request on file indicates that the split of funds is $34 Million from Federal funding and $3.5 Million from State funding (an 85/8.8 split) and an additional $500,000 from the State (not included in this appropriation.) The $2 Million from the County is indicated as Guaranteed in writing. The statement that the County would provide $2 Million in a local match if the Federal and State funding was received was not in the filed request.

The question of a study to confirm the need for the project is answered as “yes” with the caveat that funding for the study has been secured.

In the submitted request, the Construction/Renovation/Land/Planning Engineering costs for the project are $3.5 Million.

Reconciling the Differences

This table summarizes the financial changes to the submission

Line Item	County Request	Submitted Request
Fixed Capital Outlay	6,000,000	3,500,000
Total Operations & Fixed Capital Outlay	6,000,000	3,500,000
Amount Requested from the State	6,000,000	3,500,000
Federal	32,000,000	34,000,000
State	0	500,000
Local	2,000,000	2,000,000
Total	40,000,000	40,000,000
Construction/Renovation/Land/Planning Engineering	8,000,000	3,500,000

Other changes in what was submitted:

• Name of the lobbyist representing the County in this request was submitted as Joe Mobley but is presented in the request as Martin Florentino.
• $2 Million from the County is noted as guaranteed in writing, not that it is contingent upon receipt of Federal and State funding.
• Rather than confirming the study has not been completed, the submission checks the “yes” box for the study having been complete but in the explanation states that the study will be included in the future.

A check of the Federal Appropriations website indicates Congressman Rutherford has not yet submitted a request for this funding.

While it is ultimately the responsibility of the submitter to attest to the accuracy of what was submitted, there are several open questions about this funding request.

• Why were the amounts changed?
• Who provided the changed numbers?
• Was anyone at the County involved in the changes prior to the submission?
• Can the Construction/Renovation/Land/Planning Engineering be done for the reduced amount of 3.5 million rather than the 8 million requested?
• Where is the additional $500,00 in state funding derived?
• Has Congressman Rutherford been consulted and agreed to the new number for Federal Funding?
• When will Congressman Rutherford be submitting a request for the Federal Funds?
• What happens if the State funds are approved but the Federal Funds are not approved?
• Is it accurate to say that the need for the funds has been documented by a 3rd party study, if the study hasn’t been concluded (or even started?)
• Would the funds be in jeopardy if the study has not been completed?

We’ll keep following this important funding request through the process and keep you updated as we learn more!

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