3-minute read
Funding to replace a major sewage trunk line and to buy land for a new fire station in north Lakeland are the city of Lakeland’s top requests for the Florida Legislature in 2025.
Members of the Lakeland City Commission’s legislative committee on Monday named their biggest priorities:
- A massive wastewater project called the Western Trunk Gravity Sewer Main Line, which involves installing 3.4 miles of new 42-inch diameter, reinforced-concrete pipe and approximately one mile of 24-inch pipes to move 3.5 million gallons of wastewater each day. The estimated cost is $75.2 million. Currently, the city has secured $29 million from several sources, including some COVID funding, but needs another $46.2 million.
- A new fire station in north Lakeland. The total cost of the project is estimated at $7 million. The city plans to ask for funding for land acquisition. The current cost for that is $1.4 million, but the city won’t ask for all of it.
Timing is everything: “We need to be as tactical as possible, especially in this new legislative session,” City Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley told her fellow legislative committee members, which also include City Commissioners Guy LaLonde and Chad McLeod.
“One of the things I’ve heard historically over the years is by the time they gavel into session, the budget is done,” she said. “We’re going to go in committee weeks, when there’s still malleable opportunities.”
Roberts McCarley explained that Lakeland’s committee members usually went to Tallahassee to meet with lawmakers on “Lakeland Day,” set aside during the session to celebrate the Swan City. But in her decades of dealing with and lobbying the Legislature, she learned that the timing of the ask can determine the funding and asking early was far better, she said.
Months before the Florida House speaker and Senate president call their two chambers into order, the committees meet and discuss bills and projects. During “committee weeks” is the time to begin asking local legislators and department secretaries for money, she said.
Legislative timeline: Florida’s fiscal year begins July 1, but the budget is hammered together beginning at least six months before that.
Legislative committees began meeting in December and will continue through February. The Legislature has submitted its tentative budget and the governor will release the fiscal year recommended budget between now and Feb. 1.
The legislative session begins this year on March 4 and will run for 60 days, during which time the Florida House and Senate will pass their budgets and then a conference committee will meet to iron out any discrepancies.
Have a good story: Roberts McCarley said the items they are asking for need to “have a good story around it.”
She said it also helps to show that parts of a project have already been funded locally or through federal grants.
Lakeland Director of Water Utilities David Bayhan said the first phase of the Western Trunk Line project has been funded with $28 million, which should make it more palatable to ask for funds.
Anything they want a lawmaker to propose in a bill should be “less than one million dollars,” Roberts McCarley said. And, she added, breaking projects down into smaller chunks that could be acquired over several years also helps to garner money.
LaLonde said he liked the idea of breaking it down into smaller pieces.
“If you hit them with a small ask, the door is still open and you show them we’re moving forward with a large project,” he said.
latest news
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
