Florida state lawmakers in the Senate and House have announced their spending budgets for fiscal year 2025-2026. But how do they compare each other and the governor’s proposed plan?
On February 3rd, Florida Governor DeSantis introduced a $115.6 billion budget. It is seeking a $3 billion (2.5%) reduction in spending from the previous year. The governor’s office created his proposal to “focus on financial responsibility,” highlighting a $14.6 billion reserve, ranked number one in education, net intrusion, entrepreneurship and new business organization, and has formed 2.7 million new businesses since 2019.
Since his term, Gov. Desantis says his policies have helped him pay off an additional $1.7 billion in tax-promoting debt and provide a $2.2 billion tax cut while reducing the size of the government.
This will cause discussion on ranking spending higher than others.
Florida’s tax law has released an analysis of budget proposals for the state Senate and the state House of Representatives.
The Florida Senate budget proposal totals $117.4 billion, which is $1.3 billion less than current spending and $1.7 billion more than the governor proposed. The state’s employee positions were reduced in 967, all of which are currently vacant.
The budget includes a 4% increase in full wages (minimum $1,500) for state employees. Per Student Funds (FEFP) will increase by 1.5%, maintaining the school’s property tax rate currently in effect. This means that school property taxes will increase by $432.3 million.
The Capitol is offering budgets that are less than $113 billion. That’s $4.4 billion less than the Senate suggests because of the House sales tax. The House has proposed cutting state employees at more than 7,000 positions, not including a full wage increase.
Both the House and Senate are closer to public school funding.
Despite the lower spending plans announced by the House and Senate, TaxWatch says there is no indication that state legislators are interested in cutting spending, particularly on “member projects.”
“The initial search found fewer than 1,000 projects in the House budget and more than 1,300 projects in the Senate budget,” Florida Tax Watch said.
