Florida's long-awaited budget slashes spending, stashes money for a rainy day

Miami Herald

21 hours ago

After weeks of infighting and stalled negotiations, Florida's legislative leaders have released a slimmed-down budget for the next fiscal year.
The $115.1 billion spending plan released Friday is supposed to limit what lawmakers say has been a trend of runaway spending in Tallahassee and counter uncertainty over federal funding from Washington.
Lawmakers are slashing more than 1,700 vacant positions across state government and stashing millions of dollars for the state's rainy day fund, but are still funding priority projects with millions of dollars.
'We thought this day would never come, but it did,' Senate budget chairperson Ed Hooper said Friday.
Lawmakers are set to vote on the budget Monday evening, ending one of the most contentious legislative sessions in recent memory and setting up a potential clash with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Unlike a typical year, where lawmakers produce a budget within Florida's usual 60-day session, lawmakers took 102 days to put together their final product.
That's partly because legislators have been feuding with DeSantis since January, when he called lawmakers in for a special session to address immigration without any clear goals or proposed legislation.
The three special sessions ate up critical time that would have been used to work on the budget.
'There were contributing factors that largely were out of the control of either chamber,' said Republican Rep. Lawrence McClure, the House budget chairperson.
DeSantis, who has been ruthless in cutting lawmakers' projects in happy times, has until the end of this month to issue vetoes. Earlier this year, amid the feud with DeSantis, the House overrode some of his budget vetoes from last year. The Senate did not.
Although lawmakers didn't give DeSantis everything he wanted in the amounts he wanted — including money for his priority Hope Florida program — they still gave him millions for the Florida State Guard and the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund. Millions also stayed with first lady Casey DeSantis' cancer research fund.
The idea that 'the governor's priorities are being funded at a lower rate' is wrong, McClure said.
Overall spending was smaller across the board, he said.
Less spending, and possibly less federal help
Despite producing a smaller budget than the year prior, Florida's budget has still grown by more than 26% since DeSantis came into office in 2019. The budget's growth has outpaced population increases and often outpaced inflation.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, pushed for a leaner budget this year, saying state government spending had swollen and run afoul of conservative values.
'We spend every new dime of recurring revenue while congratulating ourselves for giving easy-to-fund, non-recurring sales tax holidays,' Perez said on the opening day of the session in March.
McClure blamed too much federal money in previous years for Florida's 'not sustainable' spending habits.
About a third of the state's budget is federal money. But lawmakers are now facing a potentially abrupt reversal from the feds.
Under President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, federal lawmakers could pass major cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and other social programs. There are also discussions about ending the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Senate President Ben Albritton said that if the federal government cuts costs, he thinks Florida wouldn't be able to avoid shouldering some of the burden.
State lawmakers are also preparing for a potential recession, socking away at least $750 million for the state's rainy day fund and proposing making the annual funding permanent through a constitutional amendment next year.
The last time the fund was used was during the Great Recession, prompting lawmakers at the time to consider raising taxes.
'I never want a future Legislature to have to be in that position,' Perez said last week.
But some Democrats have raised concerns about this year's budget tying the state's hands.
'I think that the state actually should be preparing to help carry its people through that tough time, not looking for ways to cut funding,' said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell.
Cuts to the budget
House lawmakers this year took particular interest in DeSantis' spending habits and governance, focusing in part on the thousands of vacant positions across state agencies.
To slim the budget, they're slashing many of those positions for the next year, including more than 1,000 in Florida's health care agencies, including the Department of Children and Families and the Department of Health.
Lawmakers also set aside a smaller amount of money than usual for teacher and school employee raises — $100 million instead of previous years' roughly $250 million.
And they're also not funding $2 million for DeSantis' Hope Florida program, which is supposed to steer constituents in need from state services to local churches and nonprofits.
Lawmakers' scrutiny has caused DeSantis to rage against them in news conferences and online videos this year.
But he's still getting much of what he requested. For the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, lawmakers set aside $50 million, $25 million less than he wanted. A state cancer grant fund, backed by the first lady, got $60 million.
And while the Legislature put more than $500 million toward the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, it fell short of the more than $600 million DeSantis wanted, with lawmakers pointing to how much of the prior funding remained unspent.
Some of the ideas in the budget popped up in the final days of negotiations, including a $3 million fund to give grants to local jails that contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for immigration enforcement.
The Florida Senate also put aside $23 million to fund the Florida State Guard, which DeSantis has used as a tool in his immigration enforcement and deportation plans.
But Hooper, R-Clearwater, said that the funding had more to do with the possibility of FEMA being dissolved than it had to do with immigration enforcement.
Both chambers together supported more than $100 million to increase the nursing home reimbursement rate.
About $28 million will go toward a farmer food share program prioritized by Albritton, along with about $104 million for another priority of his: citrus research.
No property tax breaks
Lawmakers this year are cutting taxes — but mostly for businesses.
Legislative leaders are eliminating the business rent tax, saving companies across the state about $900 million per year. DeSantis also proposed eliminating it in his budget.
They're not taking any action to reduce property taxes, however, and the House's plan for a sweeping sales tax cut has been whittled down to a limited sales tax reduction plan, which includes making the back-to-school sales tax holiday a permanent event every August and permanently exempting taxes on some items, like sunscreen and life jackets.
Though lawmakers initially billed the tax package as being targeted to benefit Florida families, the final package exempts or reduces taxes on things like NASCAR tickets, card rooms and slot machine licensing fees.
The final tax bill also sets aside $1 million for Florida's Office of Economic and Demographic Research to do a study on the state's property taxes.
DeSantis has proposed cutting or eliminating property taxes, which could leave local governments without a critical revenue source. But he proposed no concrete ideas for how to do that.
The governor in March offered a temporary plan to use $5 billion to give people a $1,000 homestead property tax rebate. But neither the House nor the Senate took up the idea.
A month into the legislative session, Perez made a surprise announcement that the House wanted to cut the state's sales tax from 6% to 5.25%. It would have been the largest state tax cut in Florida's history, saving Floridians nearly $5 billion per year.
But the Senate wouldn't go along with the plan. When asked why lawmakers decided to give businesses the largest tax break this year, Perez said the ultimate goal was to cut the amount of money lawmakers could spend.
'We have become accustomed to spending recurring dollars,' Perez said, adding: 'What we are trying to do is stop that from happening into the future.'
Times reporter Jeffrey S. Solochek contributed to this report.