\u00a0Murdered students recognized with posthumous degrees during USF graduation\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe budget is the thing that we should be focused on 150,000% because that is the lifeline of the state of Florida,\u201d said State Rep. Danny Alvarez (R-Hillsborough).The House and Senate will gavel in next Tuesday to finally hammer out the details, with a full week of budget conferences around education, transportation, the environment, and local projects.\u201cI have a lot of projects that we\u2019re fighting for, but this one veterans project that we\u2019ve been saving lives with, it\u2019s called the Florida ETMS. That\u2019s a really big one to me,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cIf you save one life with Florida taxpayers, that makes it worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarez said he\u2019s ready to fight to ensure a no-cost program serving veterans, first responders, and law enforcement survives the budget process.Across the bay, State Representative Lindsay Cross (D- St. Petersburg) said her top priority is securing nearly $3 million for flood reduction and stormwater improvements in the Shore Acres neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an area that has chronic flooding issues and is also one of the hardest hit from Hurricane Helene. And so people are still rebuilding their lives there,\u201d Cross said.<\/p>\n
Another area of concern is making sure the University of South Florida gets help rebuilding their marine science lab, after a fire broke out on campus.\u201cIt\u2019s supported scientists, students, you know, staff for decades in really cutting-edge marine research. And, you know, people\u2019s life work has been destroyed,\u201d Cross said.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fl. (WFLA) \u2014 From prioritizing veterans in the Tampa Bay area, to securing funding for repairs at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[53047,2582,39855,107749,232,234,233,9019,114348],"class_list":["post-265616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-danny-alvarez","tag-government-shutdown","tag-lindsay-cross","tag-state-lawmakers","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-tampa-bay-area","tag-veterans-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}