TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Florida Cabinet members are pushing their legislative agenda as the 2026 session approaches, with priorities ranging from government accountability to criminal justice reform and land conservation.<\/p>\n
Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingolia is working with Senate colleagues to streamline audits of local governments across the state. He said the goal is to identify waste, fraud and abuse more efficiently.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll 67 counties, all the cities across the state, are complying the information we would need and readily available and transmittable to us,\u201d Ingolia said.<\/p>\n
Florida politics:<\/p>\n
Ingolia said the audits are necessary because local government budgeting workshops are poorly attended.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is incumbent upon me as someone who has vowed to protect the taxpayer to take the information and assemble it in a way that\u2019s very easy for local taxpayers to understand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Criminal justice reforms<\/p>\n
Attorney General James Uthmeier is supporting Missy\u2019s Law<\/a>, which would require people convicted of violent crimes to remain in jail while awaiting sentencing. The proposal follows the death of 5-year-old Missy Mogle in Tallahassee<\/a>. Her stepfather is accused of killing her shortly after he was convicted of attempting to meet a minor.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen somebody has been found guilty, they\u2019ve been convicted, and they\u2019re a violent offender, they should never be allowed back into society,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n Uthmeier also wants to change how insanity pleas are handled. He is proposing legislation that would allow courts to determine where sentences are served for those found guilty by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere you have potential insanity or potential mental defects, it should not absolve you of responsibility and accountability,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n Rural land protection<\/p>\n Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson is seeking increased funding for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we think about Florida\u2019s economy, we don\u2019t always think about Florida\u2019s economy,\u201d Simpson said.<\/p>\n Simpson said purchasing development rights protects wildlife corridors, aquifer recharge areas and agricultural land.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we buy those development rights, we\u2019re guaranteeing that space for our animals to traverse the state, wildlife corridor, right? We\u2019re going to make sure we\u2019re going to have aquifer recharge areas, and we\u2019re going to have space to grow our food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The legislature will consider these proposals and hundreds of others when the session begins Jan. 13.<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Florida Cabinet members are pushing their legislative agenda as the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2855,53883,1442,28,30,29,2161,4260,1443,99,9962],"class_list":{"0":"post-103639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-blaise-ingoglia","9":"tag-cabinet","10":"tag-cody-butler","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-james-uthmeier","16":"tag-legislature","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-wilton-simpson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}