House rolls out $113.5B budget proposal, more than $1B shy of last year’s final product

The House has unrolled its proposed state budget just hours after the Senate said not to expect numbers until next week.

The spending plan comes in at almost $113.6 billion, more than $1 billion below where last year’s budget ended even after Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed $600 million in spending approved by the Legislature.

A big chunk of the budget (including operating and outlay costs) would go toward education, with almost $29.4 billion marked for the Education Department, not including about $2.5 million for education enhancement handled by the agency. Another $31.8 million is set aside for schools and colleges.

The Health and Human Services silo makes up almost $49.4 billion in the budget, the other major consumer of dollars in the state coffers.

The Natural Resources/Environment/Growth Management/Transportation section of the budget totals up at about $18.4 billion. Meanwhile, almost $7.3 billion goes toward Criminal Justice and Corrections. Nearly $6 billion goes toward other general government costs, and another $816 million funds the state court system.

The House budget includes funding for about 111,496 full-time equivalent positions in total.

For the sake of comparison, last year’s budget rang in at $114.8 billion when all was said and done, well above the current House proposal.

It’s also less than DeSantis’ $117.4 billion proposed budget that he released in December.

And as noted, there is no Senate budget yet to compare to, a sign of continued tension in talks between the chambers.

Sen. Ed Hooper, the Senate Appropriations Chair, said earlier Friday that no numbers were coming any time soon.

“We will not be presenting our budget today,” Hooper wrote in a memo to his chamber shortly after lunchtime Thursday. “Our goal remains to roll out our budget in concert with our House partners.”

Hooper said that due to public notice requirements in Senate rules, “the next opportunity to roll out our budget is next week.”

The budget includes a $100 million transfer to an Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund. But the funding required can only be used for a natural disaster.

It also includes a transfer of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida.

Meanwhile, the budget includes a crackdown on state employees going on other taxpayer-funded trips.