By: Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida <\/p>\n
House and Senate leaders still don\u2019t have a deal on topline budget numbers, although offers continue to be exchanged between the chambers, one top negotiator said Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cClose means we\u2019re there. We\u2019re not quite there,\u201d Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Ed Hooper told reporters. \u201cBut I\u2019m optimistic that it\u2019s closer than last session.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers ended their regular session on March 13 without agreeing to a spending plan for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. While talks are ongoing, no breakthrough to the logjam has been reached.<\/p>\n
Before the regular session ended, the House had put forward a $113.6 billion proposal, about $1 billion less than the current budget that ends June 30. The Senate plan came in at $115 billion.<\/p>\n
The two chambers have been unable to agree on dollar amounts available for negotiations on different budget areas, such as education, health care, transportation and the environment.<\/p>\n
Hooper, a Trinity Republican, was in Tallahassee for a Joint Legislative Budget Commission meeting. House Budget Chairman Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, participated in the meeting by phone.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are currently scheduled to be in Tallahassee next week for a special session on congressional redistricting, but Hooper said the budget will not be added to the mix.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like to get this resolved,\u201d Hooper said of the Senate\u2019s outlook.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody is stonewalling,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re just at the point where the easy stuff is resolved. Now it\u2019s \u2013 each chamber has its priorities. Each presiding officer has their priorities and what is important to them. We\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hooper said parts of the budget involving natural resources and transportation, tourism, and economic development \u201chave the most difference in dollar amounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
But McClure disputed that, saying \u201cI don\u2019t know what numbers he\u2019s looking at,\u201d in an interview with the News Service of Florida.<\/p>\n
The fiscal year starts July 1, and a budget must be in place to avoid a partial state government shutdown.<\/p>\n
Last year, a disagreement between House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, over the scope of tax cuts pushed the session to an extra 45 days.<\/p>\n
Hooper also said he hopes the process doesn\u2019t extend into June.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the budget shouldn\u2019t be that difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must confess that I\u00a0kind of sensed\u00a0that they\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0do it on time, during the legislative session,\u201d DeSantis said while in Tallahassee for a bill signing event. \u201cBut\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0surprised that they\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0seem to have anything done up to this point. So, that is going to be an issue\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0going to need to be addressed quickly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
DeSantis added that until last year the process wasn\u2019t difficult as \u201cmost of these members have voted for\u00a0relatively similar\u00a0priorities in terms of infrastructure,\u00a0environment\u00a0and all\u00a0of these other things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDragging this out is certainly not advisable.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0not something that I am going to be amenable to, with the authority that I have, to force issues when they need to be forced,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida House and Senate leaders still don\u2019t have a deal on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-238303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238303","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=238303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}