signed <\/a>the legislation in April, has argued taxpayers should not be required to support what he describes as ideological government programs.<\/p>\n\u201cThey’re picking winners and losers,\u201d DeSantis said after signing the bill. \u201cI think the proper approach is to treat people based on merit and not try to divvy them up into various different groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approaching deadline prompted a contentious Leon County Commission debate Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Commissioners voted 5-2 to provide $68,700 to Oasis under a three-month agreement ending Dec. 31 to continue supporting the women’s commission. The amount was already included in the county’s budget.<\/p>\n
Commissioners Rick Minor and Brian Welch questioned accelerating the funding, including whether taxpayers would receive clearly defined services in return.<\/p>\n
Shumate told FOX49 the work performed during the three-month agreement will match the funding and said the organization is undertaking additional work as it searches for a path forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re probably doing more work than we’ve done in three months over the last couple of years because we’re navigating trenches we don’t know,\u201d Shumate said.<\/p>\n
Leon County Commissioner David O’Keefe, who proposed providing the full budgeted amount before January, defended the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to do everything we can to get this budgeted money to support women and girls in this fiscal year legally before this law goes into effect,\u201d O’Keefe said.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty will not disappear Jan. 1.<\/p>\n
The law allows residents to sue local governments over violations and could expose elected officials who violate its restrictions to suspension or removal. But it also contains exceptions involving certain activities by nonelected volunteer bodies.<\/p>\n
O’Keefe said county officials are working with Oasis and the commission to determine what can continue legally and expect proposals before December.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re probably going to learn a lot after the law goes into effect and we see what kind of legal decisions are made,\u201d O’Keefe said.<\/p>\n
Shumate said the commission is exploring whether other organizations could continue some of its research and advocacy if its existing government structure cannot.<\/p>\n
For her, the dispute is ultimately about whether focusing government attention on one population necessarily comes at another’s expense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are missing a community approach, I think, with this entire legislation,\u201d Shumate said, \u201cbecause they are singling out parts of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 For nearly 15 years, a local commission has studied barriers facing women and girls and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-428155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428155","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=428155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}