{"id":273628,"date":"2026-05-16T18:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273628\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:10:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:10:58","slug":"op-ed-legislature-reconvenes-to-tackle-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273628\/","title":{"rendered":"OP-ED: Legislature reconvenes to tackle budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week,\u00a0after\u00a0legislators approved\u00a0Governor\u00a0Ron\u00a0DeSantis\u2019 congressional redistricting draft map proposal (83-28 in the House and 21-17 in the Senate) during\u00a0a\u00a0special\u00a0session, the\u00a0governor signed off on the bills, officially putting the new map into effect for the 2026 election cycle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time of publication of this column,\u00a0legislators will have completed the\u00a0first of\u00a0three weeks of\u00a0the second special\u00a0session, which is\u00a0focused\u00a0on passing the state budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of April, leadership in the legislative branch had announced that both the House and Senate had reached an agreement on funding allocations, which is\u00a0required\u00a0in order to\u00a0combine the funding proposals from each\u00a0chamber into a final budget to pass.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Become A Member<\/p>\n

The Apopka Chief does not have a paywall, but pavement-pounding journalism is not free. Join your neighbors who make this vital work possible.<\/p>\n

See Member Benefits<\/a>Join Our Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

The following joint allocations agreed upon for the General Revenue Fund for\u00a0fiscal\u00a0year 2026-2027 were shared by category with\u00a0legislators prior to the convening of\u00a0the special\u00a0session: $476 million for\u00a0administered\u00a0funds\u00a0and statewide\u00a0issues; $560 million for\u00a0transportation,\u00a0tourism and\u00a0economic\u00a0development; $568 million for\u00a0state\u00a0administration\/general\u00a0government;\u00a0$1.38 billion\u00a0for\u00a0agriculture\u00a0and natural\u00a0resources\/agriculture and\u00a0environment;\u00a0$6.68 billion\u00a0for\u00a0higher\u00a0education;\u00a0$6.96 billion\u00a0for\u00a0justice\/criminal and\u00a0civil\u00a0justice;\u00a0$16.2 billion\u00a0for\u00a0pre\u00a0K-education; and\u00a0$19.2 billion\u00a0for\u00a0health\u00a0care\/health and\u00a0human\u00a0services.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The joint budget proposal (in April) totaled\u00a0$51.98 billion.\u00a0House Speaker Daniel Perez had announced in a memo that he was \u201cpleased\u2026for the second consecutive year, our budget will reduce overall government spending while responsibly directing taxpayer dollars toward essential priorities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The purpose of the first week of this second\u00a0special\u00a0session was to\u00a0commence\u00a0budget conferencing. During the budget conferencing period,\u00a0legislators are assigned to one or more combined committees (with House and Senate\u00a0members) according to each budget category to focus on negotiating and resolving remaining budget items that are in dispute.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal for budget conferencing this week (and also possibly next week) was to resolve all specific remaining category matters and bump up to the larger budget conference committee.\u00a0Chaired by the\u00a0budget\u00a0chief, the larger budget conference committee oversees the budget as a whole and tailors its focus on broader unresolved budget items.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leadership informed\u00a0members that they should expect to return to Tallahassee after Memorial Day to vote on the final budget negotiations. I plan to publish another column during Memorial Day week providing an update on the Legislature\u2019s progress with negotiations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am hopeful that the next three weeks of\u00a0the special\u00a0session will be productive, efficient, and that we can all work together in unity to balance a budget that best serves our state and residents.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Doug Bankson is the founder and senior pastor of Victory Church World Outreach Center in Apopka, Florida. \u00a0He currently serves as State Representative for House District 39.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week,\u00a0after\u00a0legislators approved\u00a0Governor\u00a0Ron\u00a0DeSantis\u2019 congressional redistricting draft map proposal (83-28 in the House and 21-17 in the Senate) during\u00a0a\u00a0special\u00a0session,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-273628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273628","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=273628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}