Welcome to

Three of every four voters in 2014 said they wanted to use an existing tax source to fund land and water acquisition, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, nearly one in three dollars of that money is being spent somewhere else this year, and environmentalists aren’t happy.

The land and water conservation amendment on the 2014 ballot got more votes than any statewide elected official. It was a rebuke of lawmakers who slashed environment funding during the recession, then didn’t restore it when the economy improved.

Will Abberger ran the campaign.

“Almost a third, arguably a quarter to a third are being spent on existing agency operations. that’s not what voters voted for when four point two million said yes on Amendment One” say Abberger.

The amendment dedicates one third of the taxes on land transactions that were already being collected to environmental spending. Environmentalist Aliki Montcrief says lawmakers haven’t listened to voters as much as they should.

“When we focus on all of the money that has been misspent by the legislature, one of the things that gets lost is how overwhelming voters turned out” says Montcrief.

Florida Conservation Voters has created a web site detailing how all of the 900 million that’s supposed to go to land and water conservation is being spent this year.  Included is the entire cost of fighting forrest fires in Florida, the cost of enforcing boating regulations on the water.

The conservation money is even paying all of the salaries of the people who run all of the agencies that have anything to do with conservation. that’s all case that that came from general revenue before.

Lawmakers defended the spending, saying running agencies that have ties to the environment is part of the cost of conservation. environmentalists don’t think voters will buy it.

Conservationists say Earth Day is a good day to remember why the amendment was needed. They are planning voter outreach to let voters know who is a fried to the environment and who isn’t this fall.

Conservationists say Earth Day is a good day to remember why the amendment was needed. They are planning voter outreach to let voters know who is a fried to the environment and who isn’t this fall.