Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has unveiled plans to prepare Florida for hurricanes by initiating housing programs to rebuild from past storms and survive future ones. The governor proposed an $808 million legislative agenda which includes $98 million to extend the 2004 hurricane housing recovery program, $177 million for rental recovery and $25 million for farm worker housing.
The plan also focuses on encouraging personal responsibility through education and sales-tax holidays, as well as money to strengthen public utilities and shelters and personal residences.
“In order to get to the place to where we can recover very quickly no matter what hits us, we’ve got to deal with the current housing stock,” Bush told the Ft. Myers News-Press. “This has never been done before in this scale anywhere in the country.”
Separately, the governor proposes a $243 million increase in the state’s affordable housing loan program.
But the biggest impact to most consumers would be Bush’s proposal to build on this year’s 12-day hurricane preparedness sales-tax holiday. The governor wants to move up the tax break period to May, expand it to include lumber and generators up to $1,000, and make it permanent. Last year’s sales-tax holiday, the first in the state’s history, was from June 1-12.
The cost to tax coffers this year: $42 million.
That, $50 million for programs to strengthen homes and a $5 million public-education campaign fall into what Bush calls the need for Floridians to cultivate a “culture of preparedness.”
“We need to focus on the people who can’t be prepared for 72 hours,” Bush said. “The folks that are driving around in Mercedes to get free ice and free water, I’m not going to worry about them so much.”
Bush’s budget proposal is silent on what some lawmakers say is Florida’s greatest hurricane challenge, widespread and extended power outages like those that paralyzed South Florida following Hurricane Wilma.
The governor said he plans to meet with Florida Power & Light officials in the next two weeks to discuss the company’s plans.
Among the proposals is to seek state and federal money to help cover the cost of burying vulnerable lines.
“Before I get too deep into that, it’s important to analyze how much of this was storm-related and how much of this was deferred maintenance-related,” Bush said.
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