Following the Paper Trail: How Budget Misuse is Impacting Florida Wildlife

With an annual budget of almost $8 billion, one might think that lawmakers in Palm Beach County, Florida, would be willing to spend over 10% of its budget on wildlife. The reality? No, it does not seem like they want to.  

The state of Florida has 45 terrestrial ecosystems, creating homes for a large variety of wildlife, but Palm Beach County only allocates a little over 9% of the annual budget to the “physical environment.”  

In terms of area, Palm Beach County is the largest county in the state of Florida, and is home to over 1.5 million people. A large part of the county contains nature preserves and farmlands, according to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. Due to the largely natural nature of the county, a large environmental budget allocation seems to make sense.  

For the 2024 fiscal year, Palm Beach County has allocated 9.1% of its almost $8 billion annual budget to the “physical environment.” According to the Palm Beach County’s 2024 Budget in Brief document, the physical environment is defined as something that helps “achieve a satisfactory living of the community.”  

There are 11 different sectors that Palm Beach County's annual budget is allocated to, which are outlined in the annual budget in brief document as being General Government, Public Safety, Physical Environment, Transportation, Economic Environment, Human Services, Culture and Recreation, Interfund Transfers, Reserves, Internal Services and Other Expenses. Of these 11 sections, Physical Environment is in the middle of the allocations, with five sections receiving more money, and five sections receiving less.  

Although the description for each of the budgeted sectors are vague, in past years, the “Physical Environment” budget allocations have been used for soil conservation, agriculture, sand transfers and beach restoration.  

The allocations for the “Physical Environment” have gone up over the past four years, with the allocations in 2024 being 1.5% higher than the allocation in 2021. The 2023 fiscal year had the highest percentage of allocations with 10.3%, an outlier from the other four years in comparison. 

According to the International Monetary Fund, the decisions for financial allocations to a program are ultimately a political decision, meaning the decision makers in Palm Beach feel that the physical environment is not as important as another sector, such as “Reserves.”  

The above graph demonstrates the monetary amounts for the budget allocations to the physical budget the past 4 years in Palm Beach County. Although the monetary amount in 2024 is the highest, the percentage of the budget allocated in 2023 was the highest.

Visual Credit: Madison Bakatsias

Budget allocations for the “Physical Environment” were higher in 2023 than in 2021, 2022 and 2024 in terms of percentage. The allocations in 2023 were 10.3%, with allocations being 8.6% in 2021, 9.8% in 2022 and 9.1% in 2024. Although the reason for this was not confirmed by Palm Beach County, natural disasters in 2022, such as Hurricane Nicole, could have been a factor in the decision for the county to allocate more funds for the “Physical Environment” for the year 2023.  

The county has over $7 million that is allocated for the “Physical Environment,” but where exactly is that money going? Information available online makes no mention of where the money is specifically going, with documents such as Palm Beach County’s 2024 appropriations list stating that “Environmental Resources Capital Projects” are requesting an appropriation increase.  

The Budget in Brief reports for both 2023 and 2024 list environmental protection as one of the six long-term priorities, but the only conservation program that is getting money directly from the county’s budget is the Manatee Protection Program, according to Lisa Master, the budget director for Palm Beach County. 

According to Master, Palm Beach County has provided $750,000 per year for this program. The funds come from property and real estate tax the county collects.  

The Environmental Resources Management Department did not comment on additional wildlife protection programs that are in place, but the Palm Beach Zoo website mentions programs for Florida Panther, coral reef and snail kite protection.  

Master said the efforts for achieving the “long-term” goal of environmental protection have been consistent for the past several years, but there was no confirmation of this by Palm Beach’s Environmental Resources Department.  

In addition to the Manatee Protection Program, the Florida Forever Program is a program that allows the state to acquire and preserve ecologically important land, as well as preventing future environmental problems. Although the Manatee Protection Program is funded by Palm Beach County, The Florida Forever Program is funded by taxes.  

Since the program was started in 2001, the Florida Forever Program has had an established minimum allocation of $300 million, a minimum that has not been met since 2009.  

There are many individual organizations that have made recent efforts to make a difference in the wildlife conservation sector all across the world. In the South Florida region, however, organizations such as the Palm Beach Zoo have wildlife conservation efforts that include the research and educating of those in the community on how they can make differences in their lives that will ultimately help protect wildlife.  

Florida Forever is another program that aims to aid in wildlife conservation, with $100 million committed to recurring annual funding to the program from the state of Florida. Over $1.25 billion has been allocated to the program since 2019. The Florida Forever program aims to “conserve Florida’s natural and cultural heritage,” and supports efforts such as water resource protection, coastal resiliency, perseverance of cultural resources, public access to outdoor recreation and the restoration and maintenance of public lands.  

The program has invested almost $9 billion to conserve more than 4 million acres of land, but this program has not been able to do enough.  

The Florida State Senate and House of Representatives have each proposed new allocations for the Florida Forever Program for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The Senate proposes a $414.3 million allocation for the 24-25 fiscal year.  

Despite the low monetary allocations since 2009, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection claims the state of Florida has invested about $8.5 billion in conserving over 4 million acres of land for environmental, recreational and preservation purposes. The Florida Forever Project Distribution document outlines the 2024 projects the organization aims to complete. The two projects listed for Palm Beach County are Pal-Mar and the Strategic Managed Area Lands List.   

In addition to the Florida Forever Program, the Florida Policy Institute cites that Florida also allocated money to Red Tide Mitigation, which continues to be of concern as sea ocean water temperatures continue to rise. Although Red Tide is a concern this year again, the Florida Senate and House of Representatives both proposed budget cuts for the program. The Senate proposed a 39% decrease from the current $35 million budget, and the House proposed a 40% budget cut. 

Due to state programs not being able to do enough for wildlife conservation, United States Senators reintroduced an act in March called the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.  

It would be the largest investment in U.S. wildlife conservation in decades if passed into law.  

The act would provide almost $2 billion to local and state efforts to help fund efforts to recover endangered species, as well as aid in the protection of at-risk species so they do not become endangered. With over 13,500 species as being identified as endangered or in need of conservation help, this bill would be the most significant investment in wildlife conservation in decades.  

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says the funds would benefit Florida by adding more money to the State Wildlife Action Plan, which has developed guides to address and work towards the needs of Florida wildlife.  

At the top of the priority list for where funds would be allocated if Florida were to gain that amount of money for wildlife is “critical natural lands.” These lands were identified by the Critical Lands and Waters Identification Project and look at factors such as biodiversity, landscape function, marine resources and surface and ground water.  

As a state that millions of people move to every year, wildlife and natural lands suffer as residential and industrial zoning plans go into effect. Areas that were once very rural and natural have now become built up with apartment buildings and offices.  

How these natural areas have been majorly impacted will be examined from the point of view from those who live in those areas - the changes they have seen happen from a land and building standpoint, but also how these people have felt about these changes.  

Areas such as Orlando have been impacted by an influx of people and buildings, often times leaving wildlife with no place to go as new developments are built. Closer to Palm Beach County, Lake Okeechobee has been impacted by changes in water patterns and flooding.  

Written by Madison Bakatsias