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It comes down to choices.
Pasco County wants $7-million to buy future right of way for a wider State Road 52, $565,000 for space to shelter elderly patients with special needs during a hurricane evacuation, $1-million to help control flooding in parts of Trinity and $531,799 for a library for the Trinity-Odessa area.
All told, that's $9.1-million in state aid, all but $1-million of which was vetoed by Gov. Jeb Bush earlier this year.
County lobbyist Joe Mannion presented the wish list to Pasco's legislative delegation Tuesday morning. For the most part, the reaction to the appropriation requests was favorable. The highway money could be included in the state Department of Transportation's updated work program due next month, said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, and taking a current building and retrofitting it as a hurricane shelter for the elderly could be financed with federal money coming to the state.
But state money for a library to serve one of the wealthiest areas of the county won't be accomplished so easily.
Just as well. Pasco County has more pressing needs. There is a yearlong waiting list of 200 needy people seeking financial help to rehabilitate rundown homes. George Romagnoli, Pasco's community development manager, wants legislative help to shorten the wait.
The state trust fund that finances affordable housing, begun under Gov. Lawton Chiles' administration, is capped at $193-million. Pasco receives $2.7-million from the state for the program known as SHIP, state housing initiatives partnership. The money comes from documentary stamp taxes paid on real estate transactions.
Anyone vaguely familiar with the escalating cost of Florida real estate knows those monthly closings are considerably more valuable than they were when the program started. Romagnoli told legislators that Pasco sends $44-million in doc stamp taxes to Tallahassee. If the trust fund hadn't been capped, the county would have received $5.5-million, or more than double its current allocation, for its affordable housing programs.
Romagnoli, unfortunately, referred to that as a funding cut. Fasano was quick to correct. You got more money this year than last, didn't you?
Yes, Romagnoli acknowledged.
Too bad semantics from a sensitive lawmaker became the focus. It overshadowed significant data.
The average subsidy for a home-buying family grew from $6,435 in 1997 to $25,175 this year. Rehabilitation grants jumped from $19,000 to $31,000 over the same time period. Pasco's loan rate has a respectable default rate of just 6 percent, Romagnoli said. The program boosted home ownership in East Brown Acres, the county's first targeted residential redevelopment in west Pasco, from 50 to 75 percent. It has helped 2,300 families buy homes over the past 12 years.
The state allocates the money on a per-capita basis, except it helps out the 20 smallest counties with minimum contributions. The result is that Pasco receives $7 per person while smaller, less populated areas take in $50 a head.
"It's not fair," Romagnoli said.
Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who is running for Florida's chief financial officer, offered his own perspective. The cap became a negotiated necessity to avoid a promised veto from Bush when the trust fund came up for renewal in 2004. If Bush had followed through, the doc stamp dollars would funnel into the state's general fund and affordable housing would have to compete with education, social services and other Florida needs for its annual allocation.
Good luck.
Fasano pointed out the extra revenue is helping to finance the new growth management act and Pasco is likely to benefit from that pot of money by the previously mentioned SR 52 right of way.
In that respect, applicants for housing aid should be thankful the choices have been made already.
Considering the day's priorities, they would have to get in line behind the would-be library patrons in Trinity.
Reach C.T. Bowen at bowen@sptimes.com or at 727-869-6239.