Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a bill that will lead to using gambling money for environmental projects.
The bill (SB 1638), which includes $536 million for next fiscal year, will provide money annually for such things as buying and maintaining land in a state wildlife corridor, removing invasive species and converting properties from using septic tanks to sewer systems.
“It’s one in a series of landmark efforts that we’ve done over these last five-plus years to conserve Florida’s natural resources and to restore some of the great treasures that this state has, such as our Florida Everglades,” DeSantis said at a bill-signing event in Davie.
Much of the money will come from a 2021 gambling deal that the state reached with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The deal, known as a “compact,” allows the tribe to offer online sports betting statewide and provide games such as craps at its casinos. In exchange, the tribe pledged to pay $2.5 billion to the state over the first five years —- and possibly billions of dollars more through the three-decade pact.
“I think that the state and the tribe have worked together because we’re not going anywhere,” Seminole Tribe Chairman Marcellus Osceola. “The tribe is always going to be part of the state. This is our home. This is where we grew up. This is where we’ll be buried.”
The compact money next fiscal year is expected to provide $100 million for land acquisition, $150 million for flood control and $96 million for land management, with the money spread to the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The money is considered a supplement to a voter-approved 2014 constitutional amendment that requires a portion of money collected through documentary-stamp taxes on real-estate transactions to go toward conservation efforts for 20 years.
Lawmakers in recent years have earmarked the documentary-stamp tax money for numerous projects, such as sending about $200 million a year to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, $50 million to the state’s natural springs and $50 million to the Lake Okeechobee Watershed Restoration Project.
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