Gov. Ron DeSantis has vetoed $3.5 million for air conditioning infrastructure upgrades at the College of the Florida Keys for the second consecutive year, again denying state funding for a project the school says is increasingly urgent as Summers grow hotter and longer.
The appropriation, sought by Doral Republican Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez and Islamorada Republican Rep. Jim Mooney, would have gone toward modernizing and expanding the chiller plant system that serves as the backbone of cooling operations at the college’s Key West campus.
That includes extending chilled-water lines to the campus welding lab, which currently has no air conditioning.
The college serves more than 1,500 students, employees and community members, and its Key West campus also houses the Tuga Clinic, a community healthcare facility operated in partnership with the Florida Department of Health.
School officials warned that without upgrades, the aging system — already strained beyond its capacity — risks campus shutdowns during the hottest months, typically May through September, forcing class cancellations at the height of the Keys’ brutal Summer heat.
“Our current infrastructure is increasingly unable to meet the growing demand for cooling services,” the college’s request said.
Notably, Rodriguez and Mooney had originally requested $7 million for the full project scope, which also includes comprehensive assessment, engineering and construction work across the chiller plant system.
The Legislature partially funded the request, appropriating $3.5 million — the same amount DeSantis vetoed from the prior year’s budget. Rodriguez and Mooney also filed last year’s requests.
DeSantis, who slashed $1.6 billion from the state’s coming 2026-27 budget, issued his latest veto of the project funding Monday.
The back-to-back cancellations leave the college, which retained GrayRobinson lobbyist Angela Drzewiecki to advocate for funding in Tallahassee, in a holding pattern on a project with no identified alternative funding source.
Work on the upgrades was expected to run from Oct. 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027.
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