Florida's Latest News

Budget talks start Tuesday, with goal of finalizing by mid-June

The new fiscal year begins July 1.

After weeks of sending offers back and forth to no avail, leaders in the Florida House and Senate have reached a budget agreement, allowing lawmakers to return to Tallahassee next week for budget conferencing to finalize additional details ahead of the July 1 deadline that averts a state government shutdown. 

A budget memo from House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton indicates a new budget should be passed June 16. It includes $2.25 billion in recurring revenue reductions, a sticking point for the House during protracted negotiations, but far less than the House had originally sought. Those reductions include $900 million in cuts through eliminating the business rent tax, a priority of Perez; $350 million in permanent sales tax reductions; and $250 million in debt reduction. The budget will also include $750 million in annual payments to the state Budget Stabilization Fund, which serve as rainy-day resources. 

On the rainy-day funds, the budget calls for increasing the fund from 10% to 25%, allowing the $750 million payments until the new cap has been reached. The Senate will take up a joint resolution to amend the Florida constitution to raise the cap, which will also require voter approval. 

Legendary House Speaker, FSU president John Thrasher cast a long shadow

Thrasher ranks among Leroy Collins, Lawton Chiles, and Jeb Bush as one of Florida's greatest leaders.

From the time he served as Speaker of the Florida House to his retirement as a university president more than 20 years later, John Thrasher left an indelible imprint on Florida politics.

An effective ally of Jeb Bush, he championed legislation that ushered in an era of Republican dominance that has endured, whether in criminal justice, tax reform, or heightened school standards. He went on to help found the state’s largest lobbying firm and then served in the Florida Senate, as well as in leadership roles within the Republican Party of Florida.

Thrasher, who went on to lead Florida State University through six years of capital and academic expansion, part of a towering and consequential legacy, died early Friday in Orlando of cancer. He was 81.

“He didn’t really seek out personal acclaim,” said Paul Bradshaw, a co-founder of The Southern Group, the lobbying group Thrasher joined at its earliest stage. “But I think he thought his legacies would be if the things he touched prospered beyond him. And that is an unusual person.”

Governor approves measure to ease charter school conversions, ban student cellphone use

The measure also requires districts to share surtax revenue with charters based on enrollment and allows certain private schools to build without meeting rezoning or mitigation requirements.

Parents in Florida will soon have an outsized say in whether a private company should operate their kids’ public school.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed HB 1105, a patchwork of multiple education-focused measures lawmakers carried this year that failed to pass individually.

It includes considerations for all education levels. Perhaps most notably, it contains provisions to make it easier to convert public schools into charter schools and a total ban on student use of mobile devices in school from kindergarten to eighth grade.

The new law, effective July 1, modifies state statutes to remove district School Boards, principals, teachers and school Advisory Councils from being able to apply for a conversion charter school. It would also delete a requirement that at least half the teachers employed at a given school approve the conversion.

Hackers stole $3M from Florida nonprofit as health firms remain target

In the past month, two more Florida health care firms have joined a growing list of companies that have reported incidents of hacking or unauthorized access of patients’ personal data.

Information on more than 4,000 patients of DermCare Management and Apollo Medical Supply were exposed in two separate breaches, according to recent reports made to the Department of Health and Human Services.

They join 33 other Florida health care firms that have reported data breaches to the agency since July 2023, a federal report shows. The breaches potentially exposed the personal data of more than 6.7 million Florida patients.

That list includes Tampa General Hospital, which earlier this year agreed to pay $6.7 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by some of the 2.1 million patients whose data may have been exposed in a 2023 hack.

Patient information is typically sold on the dark web and used for identity theft. But cyber criminals have also stolen money directly from health care firms too, including $3.6 million that was stolen from a nonprofit that runs behavioral health services in the Orlando area on behalf of the state.