As the Florida House and Senate prepare to start negotiating a new state budget, their proposals are about $4.4 billion apart.
But that’s just the big number. As House and Senate committees approved the proposals Wednesday, lawmakers also face myriad other differences, including issues related to state employees, tax cuts and whether to back away from spending decisions made in recent years.
House and Senate leaders say they are trying to curb spending in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, which will start July, with House Budget Chairman Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, and Senate Appropriations Chairman Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, both likening the process to right-sizing.
But the House’s proposal totals $112.95 billion, while the Senate spending plan is about $117.36 billion. As a comparison, the budget lawmakers passed last year — before Gov. Ron DeSantis issued vetoes and mid-year adjustments were made — totaled $117.46 billion.
McClure said spending decisions in the past have left lawmakers with a “bloated state budget.”
“We must remove the temptation to spend,” McClure said.
The House Budget Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the proposals Wednesday, positioning them up to go to the full House and Senate next week. Negotiations will begin after that.
The House and Senate always have differences as they enter negotiations. Hooper said a main difference this year involves spending on state employees.
Hooper said the Senate proposal would do away with about 1,000 full-time positions that have been vacant at state agencies for at least 100 days. The House, meanwhile, would eliminate about 7,000 positions that have been vacant 90 days or longer.
Also, the Senate has proposed 4% pay increases for state employees, while the House has not proposed such pay hikes.
Another big issue in the coming weeks will be a House proposal to cut the state’s sales-tax rate from 6 percent to 5.25% — which would reduce revenue by about $5 billion. House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, has made the issue a priority, while Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, has suggested taking more time to study the sales-tax proposal and a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis to cut property taxes.
“There are cumulative impacts to every tax cut,” Albritton wrote in a memo Monday to senators. “We need to do our due diligence and understand those impacts, combined with the projected budget shortfalls already on the horizon. Florida is not Washington, D.C., California, or New York. We take great pride in our balanced budget, low taxes, and responsible fiscal planning that have made our state the envy of the nation.”
To free up money, the House proposal includes a series of changes that would at least partially undo decisions made in recent years.
As an example, the House would repeal a 2024 law that earmarked money from a gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to help pay for expansion of a state wildlife corridor and other environmental projects. The House proposal would send the gambling money to the state’s general-revenue fund, where it could be used for a wide range of purposes. A House staff analysis said an estimated $834 million would go to general revenue in the coming year.
As another example, the House would eliminate a requirement to earmark $150 million a year in documentary-stamp taxes for certain affordable-housing efforts. The money was included in a 2023 law known as the “Live Local Act,” which was a priority of then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and is slated to continue until 2033.
Rep. Jason Shoaf, a Port St. Joe Republican who chairs the House Transportation & Economic Development Budget Subcommittee, said other money for affordable-housing programs would remain in the budget. Documentary-stamp taxes are collected on real-estate transactions, and the $150 million a year would be sent to general revenue under the proposal..
But Rep. Michele Rayner, D-St. Petersburg, cited shortages of affordable housing in her community and questioned the proposed change two years after it passed.
“I feel like that’s just a little aggressive,” Rayner said.
