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Even with a six billion dollar shortfall lawmakers found a way to slip 15 million dollars worth of questionable spending into the state budget. TaxWatch, a government watchdog group, is asking the governor to veto the spending items that make up its annual “turkey” list. As Whitney Ray tells us, if the governor vetoed one turkey on last year’s list, the legislature may have avoided a lot chaos.

Armed with a turkey call and a stuffed bird Florida TaxWatch released it shortest list of budget “turkeys” since 1994. The 10 item list includes spending on nonprofit groups, African American history, and schools. The budget watchdog wants the items vetoed not because they are bad projects, but because of how they were passed.

“Turkeys are Items that bypass established selection processes,” TaxWatch Chief Researcher, Kurt Wenner.

If Governor Charlie Crist would have listened to TaxWatch last year and vetoed one specific turkey a lot of chaos in the House could have been avoided.

Former House Speaker Ray Sansom sneaked six million state dollars through the system to build an airplane hanger for a political contributor. TaxWatch put the hanger on its turkey list, but the governor approved it anyway. A few months later Sansom stepped down under mounting pressure and has since been indicted over the spending.

“People are innocent until proven guilty, but it does raise some questions about the integrity of budget process,” said TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro.

Governor Crist will review the list before he signs the budget.

“There may be a few, we’ll have to decide before tomorrow. I’m going to sign it tomorrow,” said Crist.

If Crist leaves the birds in the budget, the state’s spending plan would still have fewer turkeys than last year’s when TaxWatch identified 132.