Florida's Latest News

New Florida budget outlook contains warning signs

The days of big budget surpluses for Florida legislators are coming to an end according to a new three-year forecast.

The details: State economists late Thursday released new projections that show Florida’s budget will swing into a deficit in the next two years unless lawmakers change course from recent years when they signed off on tax cuts and expensive initiatives aimed at affordable housing, health care workers and the environment.

The long-range financial outlook — which will be formally approved next week by a joint legislative panel — projects an estimated $2 billion budget surplus in 2025. But that surplus could swing into a $2.82 billion deficit in 2026 and then balloon to $6.94 billion a year later.

There are multiple reasons for the projected deficit but it reflects growing costs in areas such as Florida’s universal voucher program, Medicaid and a need to put more money aside in the state employee health insurance program. The program that pays for health coverage of state workers, for example, is expected to be more than $400 million in the red in 2025. This past year state legislators added roughly 19,000 state college employees and staff to the health program, but Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed $80 million in extra funding lawmakers set aside to help pay for the new enrollees.

Labor Day bonus: Florida ranked 10th in the nation for most labor production

Labor Day is meant for celebrating workers and on the holiday weekend it’s notable that Florida is among the most productive states in the U.S. when it comes to laborers.

Plus Docs, an Artificial Intelligence productivity platform, recently looked into U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data to find out which states have the hardest working and most productive labor forces in 2023. Florida ranked as the 10th best state for labor productivity in the country.

The BLS defines labor productivity as a measure of economic performance that compares the amount of output with the amount of labor used to produce that output.

Florida had plenty of reasons for being ranked so high for its labor productivity, according to the study.

“Rounding out the top 10, Florida… is powered by its tourism and agriculture sectors. Florida’s rapidly growing population and diverse economy make it a dynamic contributor to national productivity,” the analysis concluded.

More Medicare Rx cost savings coming, but some question whether it’s enough

Hundreds of thousands of Floridians are expected to save money under drug pricing changes pushed into law by President Joe Biden. But while seniors welcome the help, some say they still expect to struggle to pay for needed prescriptions.

Initially passed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act made a number of changes to the Medicare prescription drug program. Those include capping co-pays for insulin at $35 a month, limiting out-of-pocket co-payments to $2,000 and allowing the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to lower spending on prescription drugs.

The changes are being rolled out over a spate of years, though the insulin caps have already taken effect. According to the federal government, more than 90,000 Floridians on Medicare were expected to save an average of $476.

A new AARP report shows that an estimated 200,000 Floridians on Medicare prescription drug plans will see savings under the new $2,000 out-of-pocket cap that takes effect Jan. 1, 2025. AARP analyzed the number of enrollees who will benefit from the cap by state, age, gender and race between 2025 and 2029. According to the analysis, Medicare drug plan enrollees who hit the maximum out-of-pocket cap will save on average about $1,500 in 2025.

Republicans float rules change after criminally charged members win Executive Committee seats

Some leading members of the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) are talking about updating the party’s bylaws so that if the Governor removes a criminally charged member from public office, that member can’t then run for a party leadership post.

Three Republicans facing indictments won seats last week on the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee. Two of them, former Miami City Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla and ex-Hialeah Council member Angelica Pacheco, were removed from office in the past year by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The third is ex-U.S. Rep. David Rivera, a former Chair of the Miami-Dade GOP. He was not in office in December 2022, when he was federally indicted for allegedly working as an unregistered foreign agent.

Hialeah state Rep. Alex Rizo, Chair of the Miami-Dade GOP, told Florida Politics that amending the state party’s rules to address criminal charges against members is “something that has been brought up” in discussions among county- and state-level leaders. It’s a change party members may officially consider — but only after the November election.