Lawmakers on Tuesday approved a sweeping tax cut for homestead property owners pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, sending it to the November ballot.

The measure increases the existing $50,000 exemption for homestead properties to $150,000 starting in 2027, and it increases to $250,000 in 2028. The exemption, though, doesn’t apply to school taxes, after lawmakers changed DeSantis’ plan Monday to protect districts from drastic cuts.

The constitutional amendment (HJR 1F) needs 60 percent support from voters to take effect. If it passes into law, the measure is expected to cut local government revenue across the state by more than $8.4 billion a year.

“I’m proud of the opportunity that we are giving the voters by letting them decide if this is something that’s going to come to fruition or not,” House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, told reporters after the two-day special session. “And if it doesn’t, I am still going to say that this was the right decision, that we produced a good product, and that I would do it all over again.”

In votes that mostly followed party lines, the House voted 75-26 on the ballot measure, and the Senate voted 30-9. Three Democratic senators, Mack Bernard of West Palm Beach, Daryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, and Barbara Sharief of Miramar voted for the measure.

Rep. Nathan Boyles, R-Baker, and Patt Maney, R-Shalimar, were the only Republicans voting against the constitutional amendment.

Some Republicans expressed angst over the vote amid concerns about cuts to local governments in their area, but ultimately approved it.

“This issue has created heartburn for me from day one, because I’m getting it from both sides,” said Sen. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater.

Hooper, who is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is retiring this year, said he received 27 text messages since debate began Tuesday morning. Local elected officials were against the proposal while other constituents told him to vote yes, Hooper said.

Most Democrats and local government officials argued the monumental changes to the state’s tax structure will bankrupt some cities and counties, cripple water management districts and other special districts, shift tax burdens to renters and businesses, and regressively hit Floridians with fees for basic services.

“When the bill comes due, it won’t be paid by Tallahassee,” said Sen. Lavon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee. “It will be paid by your city, your county, your neighborhood school, your library, your community. This proposal does not eliminate costs, it simply moves them. It is not tax relief, it is a tax shift.”

Perez said he would have preferred the discussion to have occurred during the regular session, when the House settled on a measure in February that sought to eliminate most non-school homestead property taxes.

“We put up a select committee. We had the bills, the proposals run through the process. That was never reciprocated by our friends in the Senate and it wasn’t held in high regard by the governor,” Perez said.

A little more than a year ago, Perez and DeSantis proposed competing tax restructuring plans, with the House plan favoring a lower state sales tax rate. The House later rolled out a series of potential property tax proposals. However, members of the Senate expressed concerns about the fiscal impacts to mostly rural, fiscally constrained counties.

In a released statement, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, expressed gratitude to DeSantis for “leading the conversation on cutting property taxes and putting forward this robust proposal.”

On Monday Republicans in both chambers amended the proposal put forward by DeSantis to protect school districts and allow local governments to use property taxes to fund constitutional offices, such as supervisors of elections, tax collectors and property appraisers.

Under the measure, cities and counties would be restricted to spending property tax revenues on “core services,” including schools, police, firefighters, infrastructure and the environment. But constitutional offices were left out of the initial proposal. 

Republicans also removed the establishment of a fund that would purportedly assist local governments with lost revenue. But the initial proposal from DeSantis’ office didn’t include money for the fund or outline how it was to be distributed.

Lawmakers anticipate future legislators will have to address local government funding.

Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, said the change will result in cities and counties cutting back or consolidating public safety and other services.

“They’re worried about loss of autonomy, independence, and losing their identity,” Tant said. “They are worried about becoming wards of the state and essentially be treated like welfare recipients.”

For the second day, Democrats unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill to allow water management districts use property tax revenue, to use state dollars to cover lost revenue for senior programs, law enforcement, corrections and veterans services, and to prohibit the use of public money to advertise the ballot initiative.

The measure would also lower the cap on annual assessment increases for non-homestead properties, which include vacation and investment homes and commercial properties, from 10 percent to 5 percent.

Starting after Jan. 1, 2027, first-time homeowners would have to display five years of residency to qualify for the new super exemption. Until they qualify, they would receive the current exemption that lifts local government and school district taxes on the first $25,000 of the appraised values of their primary properties and from non-school taxes on the value between $50,000 and $75,000.

State general revenue collections for April exceeded expectations by $158.9 million, even with sales tax coming in under the forecast, according to a report released Monday by the Legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research.

The report shows the state collected $5.78 billion in general revenue in April, 2.8 percent above the amount anticipated.

General revenue is closely watched because it plays a major role in funding education, health and prison programs.

Sales tax collections, which make up the largest part of state revenue, totaled $3.52 billion for April. The total was $91 million below the forecast.

Corporate income taxes accounted for $1.3 billion in revenue, or $133 million over the forecast. Also, insurance taxes came in at $247.8 million, about $60.6 million over projections, and earnings on state investments totaled $124.5 million, $4.7 million on top of the estimate.

After hours of debate, a major property tax cut plan devised by Gov. Ron DeSantis was changed by lawmakers Monday ahead of scheduled floor votes Tuesday.

Democrats warned the measure could “bankrupt” local governments, and GOP members of the House State Affairs Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee amended the bill (HJR 1F/SJR 2F) to carve out the effect on school districts.

Before the bills were changed local governments were projected to lose $8.4 billion in revenue per year, with firefighters warning of up to 25 percent cuts.

Under the measure, the current $50,000 property tax exemption would increase to $150,000 in 2027 and to $250,000 in 2028, but it wouldn’t apply to school districts levies.

If the full Legislature approves, it will appear on the November ballot for voters to consider, and it will require 60 percent support from the electorate to take effect.

“What this is going to do, and what the governor has put forward in his proposal, and what we believe Floridians have a right to make a determination about, is whether or not the revenue coming into local governments is where it should be,” said Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island, who is slated to be the House Speaker after the November elections.

Future legislators would be allowed to further expand the exemption.

Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton questioned the speed of the proposal. DeSantis has talked about the need for a large property tax cut measure for more than a year, but a concrete proposal was only released last week. She added that DeSantis had time to set up a website for people to calculate their individual savings but had no time for state economists to conduct a fiscal analysis of the changes.

Berman called it “a political stunt that threatens to bankrupt our local communities, close small businesses and jack up rental prices even further.”

Both bills passed through the committees along largely partisan lines, but some Republican senators raised concerns.

Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, voted for the bill but said the ballot summary needs to be clear about the potential effects on local governments.

“I’m hoping by (Tuesday), there can be some adjustment to that so our citizens have the ability to really understand the impact of this,” Harrell said. “There is no doubt, if the voters vote for this, we’re going to have a whole restructuring of how or cities and counties work.”

New Smyrna Beach Republican Sen. Tom Wright said the proposal was being moved “too fast, too quickly,” would “hurt” the services Floridians use every day and has drawn massive opposition from people in his district.

Miami Springs Republican Sen. Bryan Avila, who sponsored the Senate measure, explained the state is experiencing the same inflationary challenges as local governments.

“We have worked to rein in spending, pay down debt and save for the future. Local governments must do the same,” Avila said.

The bill would also lower the current 10 percent cap on annual assessment increases for non-homestead properties, which include vacation and investment homes and apartments and commercial properties.

It would also limit the use of property taxes to core services that include fire, police, stormwater, education, infrastructure and the constitutional offices, such as supervisors of elections, property appraisers and tax collectors.

Both committees removed a provision from DeSantis’ proposal to create a trust fund to assist small, rural counties.

Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, noted there was no dedicated source of money for the trust fund, which on the ballot would confuse voters who might think money would automatically be set aside in case of a shortage.

“Here we have the permission to set up an empty bank account,” Grall said.

The House passed a proposal earlier in the year to eliminate non-school property taxes for homestead owners, but the Senate didn’t go along. During the debates on the issue, local government representatives have pleaded lawmakers not to impose such a large cut to their revenues, and that continued Monday.

Sanibel City Councilmember Holly Smith, president of the Florida League of Cities, said the overall proposal is a tax shift.

“When homesteaded properties come off the tax roll, the cost of services they don’t disappear, it shifts to businesses and non-homesteaded properties,” Smith said.

Jack Cory, a lobbyist whose clients include Jacksonville Beach, told the House committee the “unstudied” proposal will be made up with fees and is simply “a get out of vote drive in ’26, not caring what happens in your communities in ’27.”

A House staff analysis put the drop in revenue at $4.6 billion a year to non-school governments, growing to $8.4 billion a year.

House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, envisioned the “creation, frankly, of welfare counties, particularly where you have the smaller rural counties and the fiscally constrained counties who would have to come to the state and be made whole.”

But supporters of the measure pointed to skyrocketing tax bills for homeowners in recent years and noted voters still get a say.

“What are we afraid of? That we pass this and the voters actually get a choice?” said Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers. “If they want lower taxes they can vote yes, f they don’t want lower taxes they can vote no.”

The Florida Association of Counties put the collective revenue hit to the state’s 67 counties at $3.6 billion in fiscal year 2027-2028 and $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2028-2029.

Republicans rejected Democratic amendments to sunset the changes in 2031 or to include water management districts as an allowed use for property taxes.

Gas prices in Florida continued to dip after the U.S. and Iran ambled toward a tentative ceasefire agreement, even as the U.S. attacked Iranian military sites over the weekend and Iran sent drone attacks on Kuwait.

AAA put the average gallon of gas in Florida at $4.04 on Monday, down 31 cents from the prior Monday.

Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iranian targets on Feb. 28, and Iran responded by attacking tankers transporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz, sealing off a vital passageway for global oil supplies, the price of gas has jumped significantly.

Florida’s average was $2.90 a gallon and the national rate was $2.98 a gallon on Feb. 28.

But in recent weeks the price has come down from previous highs.

Averages on Monday ranged from $3.81 a gallon in Escambia County to $4.44 a gallon in Monroe County.

The national average on Monday stood at $4.32 a gallon, 19 cents lower than a week earlier.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, noted Sunday the national average is the lowest in more than a month, but added, “if a deal with Iran is not solidified very soon to reopen the Strait, prices may once again spike.”

AAA also cautioned that a decrease to pre-war levels could take time.

“Gas prices remain the highest they’ve been in four years and will likely remain elevated as the busy summer driving season gets underway,” AAA stated in a release.

Diesel in Florida was $5.12 a gallon on Monday, down 23 cents over the week.

For electric vehicles, the cost per kilowatt-hour at Florida charging stations stood at 41 cents on Monday, where it has stood since April 26.

TALLAHASSEE – Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a $114.5 billion spending plan Friday, wrapping up a special session to complete the budget more than two months after they failed to do so during the regular session.

The Senate voted unanimously in favor of the budget and the House voted 99-6 for the plan, but the vast support for the measure belied the tense process to produce it.

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, insisted on cutting the current budget of more than $115 billion, while Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, preferred to keep funding essentially level.

“Floridians expect their government to spend responsibly and prioritize the issues that matter most to families across our state,” Perez said in a released statement. “For the second year in a row, the Florida House has led the charge in passing a budget that reduces spending while continuing to invest in public safety, education, environmental protection, health care, and infrastructure.”

For his part, Albritton, a citrus farmer, was pleased with the $196 million in the budget to support the beleaguered citrus industry, which has endured freezes, a greening disease and encroaching development that has led to a massive shrinking in the number of boxes it produces each year.

“Florida citrus is making a comeback, one tree at a time,” Albritton said in a released statement. “This heritage industry is not only vital to our state’s economy, but it is truly a part of our DNA. Mark my words, Florida citrus is not going down on my watch. Citrus matters, and I am running to this fight.”

The budget includes $30 billion for K-12 schools, with $201 million for teacher pay increases. That raise, though, will only go to teachers with 10 years of experience, with the increase capped at $3,000 per year.

Republicans said they wanted to use the money to prevent veteran teachers from leaving the field.

“That’s a great approach to trying to retain veteran teachers,” said Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee on PreK-12 Education.

Democrats, though, said the funding isn’t enough, as many districts faced potential cuts this year due to declining enrollment and teachers struggle to keep up with inflation.

There were funds included to mitigate the effect of enrollment declines for school districts, but Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, said that would still leave Orange County with a $13 million shortfall for its schools.

Smith voted for the budget, but also took issue with the zeroing out of preeminence funding for universities. The University of Central Florida recently qualified for the funding, which is designed to push schools to boost research. But now the school won’t be able to receive the money. In the current budget, $40 million was set aside for preeminence funding, which went to the University of Florida, Florida State University, Florida International University and the University of South Florida.

“The preeminence framework remains a part of Florida law,” said Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Higher Education, in response to Smith. “This is something that I hope we will revisit next year.”

Other Democrats called for raises for all state workers, instead of the 4 percent raises are targeted only corrections officers, state law enforcement officials and firefighters included in the budget.

“Our state employees are having difficult times paying their bills, paying for childcare, paying their car note, paying for property insurance, car insurance, all those things,” said Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando. “There’s nothing we can do about pay raises this year, but for those coming back next year, I hope that we will put this on our radar screen and make sure that it happens.”

Still, only six House Democrats voted against the budget, although the main theme from Democrats was that it doesn’t do enough to help Floridians facing cost of living constraints.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to wake up one day and realize that we are really not doing the things for the people in the state of Florida that we should be doing, as opposed to doing what companies need,” said Rep. Dianne Hart-Lowman, D-Tampa, who voted against the budget.

House budget chief Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, defended the spending plan as putting the state on a better fiscal path that will avoid the deficits in future years projected by state economists.

First-time jobless claims in Florida eased for a second consecutive week following a spike when nearly 5,000 Spirit Airlines workers were laid off in the state.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday estimated 5,805 initial unemployment applications were filed in Florida last week, down from a revised count of 6,224 for the week ending May 16 and 8,164 for the week ending May 9.

Prior to Dania Beach-based Spirit Airlines advising workers May 2 operations were ceasing immediately, the state had averaged 5,594 claims a week over the prior eight weeks.

Spirit’s downfall affected 4,853 employees in Broward, Miami-Dade and Orange counties.

The Spirit layoffs weren’t reflected in the April jobs report released last week showing an increase in jobs but also an uptick in the unemployment rate.

The state mark stands at 4.8 percent, with 532,000 unemployed Floridians from a labor force of 11.15 million.

Nationally, 215,000 claims were filed last week, up from 210,000 the week ending May 16.

A “below-normal” year for storms could further a positive trend for Florida’s insurance market, industry experts contend.

But because of Florida’s location between the Atlantic and Gulf, homeowners will always be at risk, which will temper any potential reductions to premiums.

Heading into the Atlantic storm season that begins June 1, insurance experts said legislative reforms in 2022 and 2023 targeting “frivolous” lawsuits, along with a year without any storm hits, have allowed some “softening” in homeowners insurance prices, growth in new carriers into the state, and a fall in the policy count by state-backed Citizens Property Insurance from 1.41 million policies in October 2023 to 336,000.

“We are just becoming more and more resilient in the state. So, I’m kind of optimistic that, as we see the next storm, we are going to be in better shape than we have been in the past,” said Patricia Born, who is the Midyette Eminent Scholar in Risk Management and Insurance at Florida State University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Business.

The industry is further helped right now from a “soft cycle” for reinsurance, the insurance for insurers.

But don’t anticipate any decline to erase the sharp rise in premiums Florida residents endured in the last 10 years, according to the nonprofit Coalition for an Insurable Future.

And as with every hurricane season, it only takes one storm to upend years of work that industry officials say helped attract 20 new property and casualty insurance companies with more than $850 million in new capital into the state’s market.

On May 20, Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia announced the three latest property and casualty insurers entering Florida’s market: Texas-based Builder Reciprocal Insurance Exchange, Lake Mary-based Frontline Insurance Reciprocal Exchange and Arizona-based Wingsail Insurance Company.

“Competition is the best way to ensure that Floridians can access the best coverage at the best price,” Ingoglia said in a released statement.

Born said while the industry looks strong, the Florida market needs more nationwide providers.

“We would prefer that more insurers that have a footprint across the whole country would be writing in Florida, so that they’re diversified more broadly,” Born said.

Chris Dittman, executive managing director for Dothan, Alabama-based Aon Corporation, said the reforms in Florida have resulted in sustained profitability.

“Florida is a very risky state, and it is the peak risk in the world, and so there is underwriting income needed in these (non-catastrophe) years to pay for the (castrophe) losses, because those will happen,” Dittman said during a media call hosted by the AM Best insurance ratings firm. 

Lawmakers in 2022 and 2023 eliminated one-way attorney fees and banned assignment of benefits, where contractors would take over policyholder claims. The efforts also imposed larger rate increases for customers of the Citizens Property Insurance Corp., to bring rates closer to private carriers and reduce the number of policies held by the state-backed insurer.

An AM Best report out last week said Florida’s market had stabilized and called it an “increasingly manageable market.”

The report stated Florida-domiciled personal property specialist companies recorded nearly $1 billion in underwriting gains, a vast improvement from the $132 million underwriting loss two years earlier.

“The improved Florida property insurance landscape reflects reduced litigation and claim solicitation, attracting new writers to the state while allowing existing writers to recover from losses in earlier years and take advantage of more refined pricing sophistication,” said Lauren Magro, AM Best senior financial analyst. “While 2024 marked the first year of an underwriting profit for the segment in over a decade, results in 2025 only further extended this trend and benefited from no named hurricanes making landfall.”

Many Florida homeowners would see their property tax bills eliminated or severely cut under a plan released Wednesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis is calling for the Legislature to convene Monday to consider his proposal, which if they approve it would appear on the November ballot. At least 60 percent of voters would need to support the measure for it to take effect.

Under the plan, the current exemption for homestead properties would rise from $50,000 to $250,000 immediately, with a further expansion to be scheduled by the Legislature after the measure is passed that would eventually eliminate taxes completely for those properties.

“I want to get something done. I want to make sure people can go and vote for something, and then see something that’s going to be very, very meaningful in their lives,” DeSantis said while at Hilton Garden Inn Tampa Airport Westshore.

Lawmakers have already completed one special session this year to pass new congressional districts, and are in the middle of another to complete the budget they failed to finish during the regular session.

The formal proclamation for the special session and the details of his legislation were not immediately posted.

Under current law, homeowners can qualify for homestead exemptions from the first $25,000 of assessed value, and from the $50,000 to $75,000 portion of their assessed value for non-school taxes.

The state also offers “Save Our Homes,” for homeowners, which places a 3 percent cap on annual increases in taxable values of homestead property.

DeSantis estimated his proposal would initially eliminate property taxes for about 60 percent of currently homestead property owners. When the exemption is raised to $500,000, around 92 percent of homesteaded properties would be tax-free, DeSantis said.

Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said in a memo to senators that the governor’s approach “will provide meaningful relief for Florida families, while protecting businesses from extreme tax increases and safeguarding local funding for public safety, education and our clean water infrastructure.”

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, issued a more succinct statement that implied the governor’s proposal was not presented to legislative leaders before Wednesday’s announcement.

“The Florida House has already passed a proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate homestead property taxes,” Perez said in the statement. “We are pleased the Governor has finally gotten around to share an actual proposal. We look forward to reviewing it once we have received the language.” 

The issue of tax cuts has been one of several divides between Perez and DeSantis for over a year.

Perez initially sought a reduction in the state’s sales tax rate. But as DeSantis increased his calls for lawmakers to enact a property tax proposal, the House introduced a series of property tax proposals in October.

One House proposal would have phased out the non-school homestead tax by increasing the exemption by $100,000 a year. The state Revenue Estimating Conference projected the impact to local governments at $4.4 billion the first year enacted, growing to $13.3 billion a year.

The House approved a proposal in February to eliminate most non-school homestead property taxes, but it failed to gain Senate support due to the effect on small counties expected to lose their tax base.

Florida Association of Counties deputy executive director Cragin Mosteller said the counties are up for the pending special session conversation, but it needs to be “grounded in real budget math and the long-term needs of Florida’s communities.

“Floridians want affordability, but eliminating property taxes does not eliminate the cost of infrastructure, emergency response, and other essential local services,” Mosteller replied in an email. “Those costs do not disappear — they shift somewhere else, often onto businesses, renters, and working families.”

Under DeSantis’ proposal, the property tax revenue that remains would only be able to pay for schools, law enforcement, fire and other core services. Also, it would set up a trust fund to help mostly rural counties without a large tax base, which has been a concern of Senate leadership.

DeSantis and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia have traveled the state the past year criticizing local government spending, noting it has nearly doubled the past seven years.

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, characterized the move to limit homesteaded property tax as “a boneheaded move.”

“Any cut, even though it might seem small in the grand scheme of things, could be devastating. There is no plan to make our local governments whole on the back end,” Driskell told reporters in a conference call. “Property taxes cover the costs of law enforcement and first responders. They make sure that you can visit the library without having to pay a fee. Once you start explaining these things, you start to understand that property taxes are not the real enemy here.”

Florida attracted slightly fewer tourists in the first quarter than during the same period last year, data from the state’s tourism marketing agency released Tuesday show Visit Florida reported an estimated 39.89 million people journeyed to the state between January 1 and March 31, down 1 percent from the first quarter of 2025.

Florida’s figures remain bolstered by people traveling from other states, which accounted for 36.54 million, or nearly 92 percent, of the visitors in the first quarter. The quarterly total is 1.2 percent fewer than in the first quarter of 2025 and the lowest for the quarter since 2022 when 36.39 million people traveled to Florida as the nation was still emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before the quarterly numbers were released, Visit Florida President and CEO Bryan Griffin told members of the public-private agency’s executive committee they have seen an increase in people driving to Florida, with some flying to airports outside the state and then motoring south.

“We need to let those numbers settle before we know for sure,” Griffin said in a conference call last Wednesday.

There were 2.29 million overseas travelers to Florida in the first quarter of this year, up 8.5 percent from the same period of 2025, and 1.05 million Canadians, 12.1 percent fewer than last year.

The Canadian figures would have been more pronounced without changes to the 2025 figures.

Included with the first quarter report, Visit Florida revised the overall count for 2025 from 143.29 million to 143.33 million.

Among the changes was an increase in Canadian travelers from 2.9 million to 3.17 million for the year and 1.06 million to 1.2 million for the first quarter of 2025.

“The revised data reflects delayed final reporting from kiosk issues at Ontario ports resulting in an undercount of U.S. visits in quarterly travel surveys,” a release from Visit Florida stated. “The updated analysis also more accurately captures evolving Canadian travel patterns, including travelers driving into the United States before flying onward to Florida.”

The overseas count is the most ever for the quarter, topping the 2.28 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

Griffin called the overseas figures “phenomenal, with travel from the United Kingdom up 17.2 percent from the first quarter of 2025 and from Ireland by 14.5 percent in the same time.

“We continue to lean in and encourage and invite people from overseas, and to develop the way that we do business there and the marketing efforts that we have there,” Griffin said. “And we’ve got some great things planned for the year ahead.”

Brazil has surpassed the United Kingdom in the past two years as the top source of overseas travelers. In 2025, Brazil accounted for 10.5 percent of overseas travelers. The United Kingdom was at 9.7 percent last year.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Florida’s request to prevent California and Washington from issuing licenses to commercial truck drivers who are not in the country legally.

While the court didn’t outline its reasons for the dismissal, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote a separate opinion in dissent. Thomas noted, “We cannot refuse to hear suits between States,” and that Florida “has nowhere else to bring” its claims.

Florida filed the suit two months after semi-tractor trailer driver Harjinder Singh, a native of India, was arrested in August following a crash that stemmed from him allegedly attempting a U-turn on the turnpike in St. Lucie County. The crash resulted in three deaths. Singh was an employee of a California-based trucking company.

The lawsuit alleged California and Washington have not complied with federal safety and immigration status requirements in issuing commercial driver’s licenses. It argued those states “chose to ignore these standards and authorize illegal immigrants without proper training or the ability to read road signs to drive commercial motor vehicles.”

“California’s and Washington’s decision to endanger their own citizens is reprehensible,” the lawsuit said. “But commercial drivers routinely cross state lines, endangering citizens of other states.”

On February 6, the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles started administering driver’s license tests only in English. Exams for most non-commercial driver classifications had been offered in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.

During the regular legislative session, an effort failed (SB 86 and HB 1247) that sought to require law enforcement officers to take into custody truck drivers determined to be undocumented immigrants and transfer them to federal immigration officials. The measure also would have required impounding trucks and imposing a $50,000 fine on the vehicles’ owners.

State budget negotiators agreed late Friday to set aside $50 million to pay for building upgrades at a Tampa college as part of a deal for a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays.

But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ed Hooper said the funding, which would pay for Hillsborough College buildings, isn’t set until the funding agreements between the team and local governments are finalized.

“Until that issue is resolved and signed and sealed, I don’t know that the state should commit $50 million to help Hillsborough College rebuild three buildings that are in dire need of a lot of upgrade and upkeep and renovation,” Hooper, R-Clearwater, told reporters.

“This is not money that’s going to the Rays. This is for Hillsborough College … to build a new building to meet their students’ needs, but I don’t think that will be committed until there is a done deal.”

This is not the first time Hooper has chimed in on the state funding sought by the Rays.

On May 12, Hooper said the Rays, envisioning a $2.3 billion, 31,000-seat domed stadium and enjoining mixed-use development, need to get local government tax incentives approved before the state considers adding to the mix.

The Rays are seeking roughly $976 million in support from the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County.

This week, the Hillsborough College Board of Trustees moved forward with a non-binding ground lease with the Rays while the Hillsborough County Commission and Tampa City Council approved non-binding agreements to continue talks.

Hooper said in talks with Gov. Ron DeSantis, the governor has indicated he’s not willing to commit to the $50 million if the deal remains unresolved.

DeSantis and the Cabinet earlier this year agreed to include 22 acres to the initial 113 acres of the campus eyed for the new complex.

The team’s new ownership group is led by Patrick Zalupski, the founder and president of Dream Finders Homes, whom DeSantis appointed to the University of Florida Board of Trustees in 2023.

The funding is one piece of budget talks that remain in progress. House and Senate leaders issued statements Friday indicating they could have a finalized 2026-2027 budget by the end of Tuesday, setting up a vote of both chambers Friday on the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The offers released Friday also showed the House modifying its stance on transferring buildings, facilities, equipment and debt from the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to Sarasota-based New College of Florida by three months.

While the Senate hasn’t backed the transfer, the House pushed the timeline for New College to assume the liabilities of the Sarasota-Manatee campus from USF from Oct. 30 to Jan. 31, 2027.

The House also agreed to $40 million for the Job Growth Grant Fund, which the governor uses for infrastructure and workforce training projects. The Senate started at $50 million for the fund, but the initial House budget didn’t fund the program.

House and Senate leaders reached a final deal on the state budget late Sunday night, the last step in an extended process that required a special session to complete for the second year in a row.

The spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 will be nearly $115 billion, less than the Senate’s preferred budget but not the $113.6 billion plan preferred by the House.

House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, had insisted on larger cuts to the existing budget, fearing projected deficits in future years if spending wasn’t curtailed. The chambers couldn’t reach an agreement during the regular session that ended March 13.

Legislators plan to approve the budget Friday and send it to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Here’s a look at some of the agreements reached Sunday:

EDUCATION

After clashing during the regular session over the state voucher program, the chambers agreed to keep the $4.5 billion for scholarships for homeschool and private school tuition inside the main funding formula for K-12 public schools.

An audit showing mismanagement of the program in November spurred the Senate to push for changes to ensure scholarship funds are being paid correctly, but the House wouldn’t go along.

The chambers also approved a provision to prevent deep cuts to school districts, which are seeing declining enrollment. Two counties, Union and Glades, saw their school districts put on emergency administration after enrollment declines jeopardized their solvency, and lawmakers moved to prevent the same from happening in other counties.

A measure setting aside $7 million for capital improvements at private schools in “financially disadvantaged” areas was amended to require the funds to be spent in rural counties with less than 10,000 people, with the funds disbursed by Dec. 1.

Lawmakers will also allow Florida State University to use existing funds to pay for the acquisition of Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare. FSU agreed to buy the hospital from the City of Tallahassee earlier this year, paying $3.6 million per year for 30 years, and investing $1.7 billion in the same period.

There’s also a deal in place to transfer control of the University of South Florida’s Manatee-Sarasota campus to New College of Florida, which the House wanted but the Senate resisted until late in budget negotiations.

HEALTH CARE

In the health care portion of the budget, one point of contention was the Cancer Innovation Fund championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis. The Senate preferred $30 million while the House didn’t want to fund the program that seeks to boost cancer research, but the chambers settled on $20 million on Sunday evening.

Lawmakers provided emergency funding during the regular session to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which faced cuts by the Department of Health amid a shortfall of federal funding. That funding only lasts until June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Now, the program that helps HIV patients get needed prescriptions will receive $75 million, as top budget negotiators acknowledged the cuts earlier this year pushed people in the program to get private coverage to get their medications.

A $50 million fund that was part of a 2024 law championed by Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, who was Senate President at the time, was eliminated in the last round of budget talks. The Health Innovation Council, though, still has funds from the current year to help bring new medical technologies to hospitals.

The House wanted $250,000 to study the effects of leaving the federal health care exchange, where residents can shop for Affordable Care Act plans, but the Senate didn’t agree to it.

ENVIRONMENT

When the Legislature ended the regular session without a budget in place, DeSantis threatened to veto the spending plan if it didn’t include enough funding for Everglades restoration projects.

The final budget deal has $514 million for such projects, which McClure and Hooper said should satisfy DeSantis. But they said his veto threat wasn’t on their mind during negotiations.

“$514 million is well above the statutory minimum and it is a lot of money and should continue the (Everglades restoration) efforts,” House budget chief Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, said.

The chambers also agreed to $425 million for the Rural and Family Lands program, which pays for easements on agricultural land to prevent development on farmland.

OTHER ISSUES

As part of the budget deal, the state will also provide $4.5 million in grants to county supervisors of elections to pay for software or hardware to conduct post-election audits.

And there will be $4 million for the families of the Groveland Four – Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin – African-American men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Lake County in 1949. They were pardoned in 2019 and exonerated in 2021. The Senate had the measure in its initial budget but the House resisted the provision until the last week of budget talks.

One issue where the chambers couldn’t reach an agreement was on security funding. The Senate wanted to pay for a security detail for DeSantis and his family for one year after he leaves office on Jan. 5, but the House wouldn’t go along. Also, the Senate didn’t agree to the House push to provide security to the nominees for governor of each major party after the Aug. 18 primary election.