News for all of Southwest Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

At $117 billion, state budget for FY 2023-24 hits a record

“Our budget is a fiscally responsible, balanced approach to making key investments in our environmental, housing, and transportation infrastructure and our clean water resources, while maintaining a historic rainy day fund that ensures we remain prepared to tackle any future challenges that may face our state,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
/
AP
“Our budget is a fiscally responsible, balanced approach to making key investments in our environmental, housing, and transportation infrastructure and our clean water resources, while maintaining a historic rainy day fund that ensures we remain prepared to tackle any future challenges that may face our state,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze.

Flush with cash, Florida lawmakers on Tuesday released a $117 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start July 1.

The record budget would be about $7 billion larger than the spending plan for the current fiscal year.

House and Senate negotiators finished working out details Monday.

Tuesday’s release triggered a 72-hour “cooling off” period that will end with the House and Senate voting on the budget Friday, the final day of the annual legislative session. The budget then will go to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has line-item veto power.

“Our budget is a fiscally responsible, balanced approach to making key investments in our environmental, housing, and transportation infrastructure and our clean water resources, while maintaining a historic rainy day fund that ensures we remain prepared to tackle any future challenges that may face our state,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, said in a prepared statement Tuesday.

Among other things, the budget includes $26.7 billion for the Florida Education Finance Program, the main funding source for public schools; $47.3 billion for health and human services programs; and 5 percent across-the-board pay raises for state workers, with some employees eligible for additional increases. T

he budget is bolstered, in part, by higher-than-expected tax revenues.

Trusted by over 30,000 local subscribers

Local News, Right Sized for Your Morning

Quick briefs when you are busy, deeper explainers when it matters, delivered early morning and curated by WGCU editors.

  • Environment
  • Local politics
  • Health
  • And more

Free and local. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

More from WGCU
  • Tuesday the school board is set to hire Robert Dodig, currently interim, as board attorney, soon to be followed by a chief staff attorney, a new position.
  • Captiva Island residents have been urged to allow free removal of Australian pines and green iguanas through a grant from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
  • Spanish Moss is familiar to anyone who has visited Florida. It can appear anywhere as a result of the wind dispersing its seeds as it does the seeds of dandelions. But development of the draping clusters of Spanish Moss depends on the seed landing in the right place – on a horizontal limb of a rough-barked tree near water or in a very humid environment. Most Spanish Moss plants only grow to a bit over a foot long, but as they reproduce, one plant becomes many plants linked together by their limb-like scaly-surfaced leaves.There is safety and a future for the plants in such a mass. The cluster of plants holds moisture in – allowing them to survive dry times and also facilitating pollination as insects move from a flower on one plant to a flower on another in the cluster. A mass of Spanish Moss plants appears gray during dry times as the plant shrinks, but is green in appearance as rains allow the plant to swell with water and expose bare areas between the scales.