Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state budget for next fiscal year Monday. The year begins Wednesday.
It’s the last budget DeSantis will sign before he leaves office. The $117.6 billion budget includes a plan to transfer USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida, which DeSantis remade with conservative leadership. It also includes teacher pay raises, Everglades restoration money and a lot more.
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DeSantis struck a celebratory tone during a Monday morning press conference at Hillsborough College in Tampa.
“So the budget that I’ll sign today, after doing my line item vetoes, will represent the fourth straight year in Florida that we’ve actually reduced our state budget,” he said. “Who else is doing that?”‘
State Democrats were far less impressed.
“Democrats absolutely were disproportionately targeted in the vetoes by a rate of two to one by our initial assessment,” said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa. “What’s so unfortunate about that is that regardless of whether or not your district is represented by a Democrat or a Republican, there are people of all political stripes in those districts.”
DeSantis vetoed nearly $810 million in line items, most of them projects lawmakers requested for their districts.
Beyond that, other vetoes included the transfer of $750 million from the general revenue fund to the Budget Stabilization Fund, or the “rainy day fund,” which helps the state in case of shortfalls. He also rejected a prison infrastructure plan that would have financed new prison construction and maintenance, eliminating funding for correctional officer raises that was tied to it.
Doug Soule is a reporter for WUSF, the bay area’s NPR affiliate.