An annual ritual once again produced a sign of Miami-Dade County’s clout and size: The county took in the most money from the state budget, according to a county-by-county breakdown of local projects released Friday by the Legislature.
Miami-Dade’s haul of more than $1.7 billion is about 65 percent more than the county with the next-largest share, Broward, which took in a little more than $1.05 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 for state funds were Hillsborough, $695.4 million; Alachua, $688.5 million; Duval, $625.8 million, Orange, $542.1 million; Leon, $507.9 million; Palm Beach, $435 million; Pasco, $252 million; and Lee, $220.7 million.
The figures do not account for the funding that comes from the state’s classroom spending formula or programs like the Medicaid health system for low-income Floridians. The projects listed for individual counties account for more than $9.5 billion of the $74.5 billion budget currently being weighed by Gov. Rick Scott.
They also do not account for items like prisons located in the counties, and the numbers do not include a spate of multicounty projects also broken out by the Legislature in Friday’s report.
Finally, Scott is likely to strike some projects from the budget with his line-item veto, which could change the numbers, at least slightly.
The county with the least to show in direct spending from the budget, which takes effect July 1, is Union County in rural North Florida. It received just $176,225.
Only two other counties had less than $1 million: Liberty, which had $218,917; and Wakulla, which takes home $416,884.
Rounding out the bottom 10 were Lafayette, $1.2 million;
Gilchrist, $1.3 million; Dixie.
$2.8 million; Hardee, $3
million; Jefferson, $3.5 million; Franklin, $3.8 million; and Gadsden, $5.1 million.
Overall, 17 counties garnered more than $100 million each, with two counties — Sumter and Seminole — missing that mark by less than $5 million. And 17 collected less than $10 million.