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After squabbles and delays, Florida finally has a budget

State lawmakers forged a roughly $115 billion budget Friday that puts them on track to finally close their annual session after more than 100 days and newly exposed rifts between Florida's GOP legislative leaders and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

House and Senate budget negotiators announced the final pieces of a spending deal that should enable them to vote on a new state budget by Monday. They are finishing just weeks before the end of the state’s fiscal year, narrowly avoiding a potential shutdown of Florida government.

Republican legislators will focus on the overall budget coming in smaller than it has been in several years and lower than the one recommended by DeSantis. Lawmakers were able to achieve a smaller budget with a series of moves including eliminating hundreds of vacant positions throughout state government.

State House budget chief Lawrence McClure (R-Dover) labeled the final budget a “reimagining” and “recalibration” of the state’s spending practices. Legislative leaders, as part of the overall deal, agreed to set aside billions for the state’s reserves and to pay off existing bonds. They also clawed back billions that had been set aside in previous years.

Here are all the tax cuts included in the Florida Legislature’s budget this year

On the 102 days of negotiations about what taxes in Florida to slash, legislative leaders unveiled almost its tax package for the coming fiscal year. Nearly $1.3 billion in savings were included, some with revenue costs in the hundreds of millions and others delivering much smaller sums.

The biggest tax savings come with the repeal of Florida’s business rent tax. Florida for years has been the only state to assess a tax, 2% last year, on business leases. Killing the levy will mean a collective cut in general revenues of $904.8 million.

The legislature also plans to make a back-to-school sales tax holiday on most clothing and school supplies permanent. It has been authorized by Legislature most years since 1998. Senate President Ben Albritton said he wants it to happen every year now, meaning a recurring cut to state revenues. This year, that means a loss of $167.7 million.

Several sales tax exemptions on products for storm preparedness made the budget. A tax exemption for certain batteries will cost the state $58.5 million, one on ground anchors and gas cans will cost $22.3 million, and one on tarps brings a price to the state of $14.4 million. Losing taxes on power generators will mean losing $6.2 million in revenue.

Sprinkle list: Lawmakers add $25M to Job Growth Grant Fund — far below Gov. DeSantis proposal

Florida’s Job Growth Grant Fund is getting $25 million in next year’s spending plan through a last-minute earmark from the Senate.

That’s a third of what Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed for the program in his February budget proposal.

In its “sprinkle list” Friday, the upper chamber allocated the nonrecurring set-aside from the state’s General Revenue Fund.

The move came after the Senate and House disagreed on how much to apportion the program through the regular budgeting process.

No similar sprinkle list allocation came from the lower chamber.

The sprinkle list, as its name suggests, is an assortment of supplemental funding initiatives that each chamber of the Legislature compiles as its budgeting processes near the end of every year.

Florida plans for peak hurricane season amid storm of FEMA reforms

The Trump administration’s talk about drastically altering FEMA’s role in disaster recovery has generated heavy uncertainty. But hurricane season is now in full-swing, and with more experience in storm recovery than any other state, Florida’s local emergency management officials are trying to stay focused on staying prepared.

Florida’s storm season began June 1. With the most active, historically volatile stretch a couple of months away, county emergency managers have no time to plan for changes that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the White House and conservative allies have been discussing for some time. Instead, the state’s disaster recovery network has decided to rely on itself — even if they may need federal assistance down the road.

“Emergency managers can’t let that noise blur what they need to do for their community,” Lord said. “Whatever our federal government decides to do, we at the local level will just morph or evolve our programs to adjust to that new reality.”