Lawmakers in Tallahassee are preparing for the possibility that they may not have an agreed-upon budget by the end of their 60-day Legislative Session.

Passing a budget is mandated in the state constitution, and it’s the only thing that is. In order to finish on time, the House and Senate would have to have a budget on the desk — though not literally, they get a little wiggle room to print it — by Tuesday in order to meet the required 72-hour cooling off period before sending the budget to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

So what happens if that doesn’t happen?

The current fiscal year budget covers the state’s bills through June. A new budget, for the next fiscal year, must be in place by July 1 or else the state would face a government shutdown.

Simply put, there are two options to ensure that a shutdown, which would wreak havoc on state operations, doesn’t occur.

The first, and arguably most preferable option, is to extend the Session. To do that, lawmakers in the Senate must vote by a 3/5 majority among Senators present to add extra time.

The other option is to call a Special Session for lawmakers to return at a later date, likely in June.

There are three ways to call a Special Session. The Governor could call it, or the Legislature could do so with a joint proclamation from the House Speaker and Senate President. The third option hasn’t happened in modern history, and involves rank-and-file lawmakers petitioning for one. It’s an exceedingly unlikely route.

In calling a Session, leadership or the Governor must specify a date, a length of the Session, and a subject matter to be addressed. If Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton called a Special Session, the Governor could still add to the agenda. That’s important considering the ongoing rift between the legislative and executive branches, because it would allow DeSantis to force lawmakers to reconsider any priority that may have died when then hankie dropped, signifying Sine Die.

Which of those routes lawmakers might take is an open question, but according to sources with knowledge of the process, it would likely depend on how close the House and Senate were to reconciliation on the budget.

If they’re close, it’s likely that lawmakers would approve extending the Session to finish the necessary business of passing a budget. If they are still far from consensus, it is possible that would cause lawmakers to prefer a break before coming back for a Special Session.

Either way, it’ll cost taxpayers.

There is no hard-and-fast number on how much it costs to extend Session or call a Special, but estimates vary around $40,000 or $50,000 per day.

Whether extra time is needed is still unknown, but it’s looking increasingly possible

As of Wednesday afternoon, the House had still not yet provided its first budget offer to the Senate, though Senate budget chief Ed Hooper told Florida Politics on Tuesday that he was expecting the House’s initial offer that afternoon, signaling work on it is nearing completion.

But Hooper also said that while he expected a “serious” offer from the House, he acknowledged that it was likely to still be close to $3 billion different from the Senate’s version, which is a lot of daylight to hash out between the chambers.

Sources with knowledge of past budget processes tell Florida Politics that seven days is considered a quick turnaround, while the back-and-forth has, in recent years, taken as much as two weeks. With Tuesday’s deadline for a completed product less than a week away, time does not appear on lawmakers’ side.

And that all comes down to allocations — spending buckets for things like education, health care and transportation. Once allocations are agreed upon between the two chambers, it’s a signal that lawmakers are getting close to reconciliation and a final budget product ready to be sent to the Governor.

It’s also worth noting that the Tuesday deadline to adjourn on time is not really even the deadline for lawmakers to reach consensus. Staff members require at least 24 hours, preferably 48, to transfer the budget from lines on a spreadsheet into proviso that has been checked and double-checked. That bumps the shot clock up to Monday at the latest — just five days away.

Those allocations may be the metric to watch. If budget chiefs get there in the next day or two, it’s likely that even if extra time is needed, it will be via an extended Session, not a Special Session. If they don’t, a Special Session might be on the horizon.

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A bill to further update Florida’s condo safety laws and give unit owners more options when covering the cost of inspections and repairs is en route to the Senate after clearing the House floor.

House members voted 113-2 for HB 913, which makes numerous changes to laws passed after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside.

It’s the most recent bill to tackle the issue by Miami Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez, who has received praise for legislation she previously passed with Fleming Island Republican Sen. Jennifer Bradley, along with some criticism about cost difficulties that prompted some unit owners to sell their homes.

HB 913 and its Senate analog (SB 1742) aim to address that issue by enabling condo associations to use lines of credit to pay for pricey structural integrity reserve studies (SIRS) and clarifying that only buildings with three habitable stories must comply with SIRS and milestone inspection requirements.

“I did not come to the House to become a housing expert, but here we find ourselves,” said Lopez, who has been affectionately dubbed the House’s “Condo Queen” for her focus on the issue.

“(I am) prepared to continue to do the work to make sure that we have listened. I’m telling you this is landmark legislation that finally does provide the relief, the financial relief, that all of our condo owners deserve.”

Like its predecessors, HB 913 does a lot. It guarantees condo associations a route to voting online, requires the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to create a standard form for SIRS and set criteria for determining the useful life of condo components, and allows more flexibility for excluding certain low-cost repairs or replacements from the SIRS total.

It also mandates that the minutes of a condo board’s meetings from the past year must be available online to association members, requires more transparency from hotels that also contain condos and prohibits the person or company that conducted the SIRS from having a financial interest in the person or company that conducts the repairs.

Democratic Reps. Robin Bartleman of Weston and Felicia Robinson of Miami Gardens lauded Lopez for her efforts and responsiveness and thanked her for visiting their districts to speak with condo owners there.

Lopez made herself available “at all hours of the evening (and) early in the morning,” Bartleman said, adding, “It just shows what a great member you are and how you really try to meet the needs of everybody.”

Other Democrats in the chamber, including Reps. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, Mitch Rosenwald of Oakland Park and Marie Woodson of Hollywood, offered similar plaudits.

Rep. Dianne Hart, a Tampa Democrat, asked Lopez if she’d be willing to amend her item to require condo associations to allow electronic voting rather than what it currently does, which is require condo boards to create a ballot question on doing so for the association’s next election if 25% of unit owners call for it. Lopez said she would prefer to see how her bill works before making additional changes.

Lopez credited a woman she spoke with while visiting Bartleman and Robinson’s districts with giving her the idea for the line of credit option. Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe improved the bill’s hotel condo aspect, she said, and a constituent of Stuart Republican Rep. John Snyder’s proposed requiring the uniform SIRS form.

“When the Speaker says that this is a member-driven process, it most certainly is,” Lopez said. “And this bill demonstrates how we do that.”

A contentious section in the bill’s first draft would have blocked Florida’s state-run insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, from issuing or renewing policies for condo owners and associations that don’t comply with building inspection requirements. The provision was a response to the fact that, as of last month, most of the more than 11,000 condo buildings with three or more levels that must comply with relatively new rules set in recent Sessions hadn’t done so by the Dec. 31 deadline.

Lopez deleted the section in the bill’s final committee stop last week.

The two House members who voted “no” on HB 913 were Republican Reps. Mike Caruso of Delray Beach and Kiyan Michael of Jacksonville. Neither debated its merits Wednesday, the first time either had a chance to vote on the measure.

HB 913 is now likely to be taken up alongside SB 1742 when the Senate bill faces a floor vote Thursday.

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