Budget Talks Eyed Later This Week

By The News Service of Florida

Senate Appropriations Chairman Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, said Monday he hopes formal budget talks with the House can start later this week, with lawmakers finishing the spending package next week. Under such a scenario, Hooper said, lawmakers would take the weekend off before returning to Tallahassee.

The Senate and the House have been swapping proposals on the budget and a linked tax-cut package. But they have not announced “allocations,” which are overall dollar amounts for different areas of spending, such as education, health care, law enforcement, agriculture and transportation. Legislative leaders said last week they would not finish a budget in time to end the legislative session as scheduled on Friday. Both chambers would have to agree on an extension of the session into next week.

Another possibility would be for lawmakers to come back later to address the budget, which must be finished before the July 1 start of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

The House this month approved a $112.95 billion budget plan, while the Senate’s plan weighed in at $117.36 billion. The House also has proposed a tax package (HB 7033) totaling about $5 billion, with the cuts largely stemming from a plan to permanently reduce the state’s sales-tax rate from 6 percent to 5.25 percent. The Senate proposed a $1.83 billion package (SB 7034), that included eliminating sales taxes on clothing and shoes that cost $75 or less.