Politics
Want a receipt for your Florida state taxes? This new, free ‘budget explorer’ does that and much more
How much money does Florida take from me in taxes each year? Where does it go? How effective were my state Representatives in delivering funding to local projects?
Floridians can answer those questions and many others through TheFloridaBudget.org, a new “budget explorer” website that takes the $113.8 billion budget Gov. Ron DeSantis signed and makes it comprehensible and personally relevant to taxpayers.
The site, created and operated by the Aventura-based Public Communicators Group (PCG), is free to use. There’s no login, and it’s available in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
“It’s built for residents first, but it’s just as useful for the people who work with the budget every day: reporters, legislative and local government staff, advocates and lobbyists,” PCG founder and CEO Evan Ross said.
“Of all the things that our government does, the budget is the most complicated. Our budget explorers make it easy for anyone to understand and apply to themself, seeing how their tax dollars are spent, how their elected officials are delivering, and what their government is prioritizing.”
PCG constructed the site using state documents: the General Appropriations Act of 2026, the Governor’s veto list, the Legislature’s Fiscal Analysis in Brief and Transparency Florida, with agency details current as of October.
The site uses the Legislature’s $113.8 billion budget instead of DeSantis’ $117.6 billion total, Ross said, because the Legislature’s figure is the one to which every agency and program adds up. The site itself explains the difference.
A key feature of TheFloridaBudget.org is the “Florida Tax Receipt,” a personalized breakdown of what each user pays the state in annual taxes, based on information they provide on personal spending.
That info can include what county users live in; how much they spend per month on taxable purchases, electricity, TV and streaming services; their weekly gas expenses; and other financial factors like home sales, mortgages and vehicle registration fees.
For gas and property taxes, the site shows what users pay their respective counties.
Ross said nothing typed into the site leaves a user’s browser.
Using that information, TheFloridaBudget.org breaks down what each person’s state taxes pay for yearly, from education, human services and criminal justice programs to natural resources, transportation, general government and the judicial branch.
The site also details what each state lawmaker brought back to their districts in 2026 appropriations, searchable by county.
In Miami-Dade County, for instance, the site shows Republican Rep. Mike Redondo — who is on track to be House Speaker for the 2030 term — brought home the most funding ($137 million).
In terms of sheer project numbers statewide, meanwhile, Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon netted the most by far (108 projects), while 17 lawmakers — all but three of them Democrats, who are in a superminority in the Legislature — had no projects funded.
Among many things, the site also details both in-text and graphically where state funding goes, where the money comes from, how this year’s budget compares to last year’s, how much each state agency receives in funding, which 616 line items DeSantis vetoed, how Florida’s budget and per-resident spending compare to other states — the site ranks Florida’s tax burden lower than all but two states — and how Florida’s 67 counties compare to one another in sales tax levels.
PCG created TheFloridaBudget.org after constructing a similar budget explorer for the city of Aventura in September. The firm also used the technology to build an interactive site through which Pembroke Pines residents can peruse the results of a July poll it ran in the city.
TheFloridaBudget.org is the latest and most sophisticated iteration of PCG’s user-friendly products yet — it even comes with a “night mode” to prevent eye strain.
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