{"id":281761,"date":"2026-05-23T05:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281761\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T05:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:18:24","slug":"budget-conference-house-and-senate-still-apart-on-higher-education-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/281761\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget conference: House and Senate still apart on higher education issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a deadline looming to pass the budget, the House and Senate\u2019s top budget negotiators are still apart on several higher education items.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Senate is still asking for $50 million as a reward for Florida\u2019s elite research schools, like the University of Florida, Florida State University, and University of South Florida.<\/p>\n

But in its latest offer released Friday afternoon, the House hasn\u2019t budged and wants to defund preeminent funding completely.<\/p>\n

The Senate originally asked for $100 million for preeminent research universities.<\/p>\n

Another split is over state colleges\u2019 funding model and faculty recruitment\/incentive. The Senate is calling for a $40 million spend while the House\u2019s latest bump offer moved up to $15 million after previously offering zero funding.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The House supports giving $7.5 million to the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education<\/a> which is located at the University of Florida<\/a>. The Senate wants to spend $2 million on it in its latest bump offer.<\/p>\n

The House has given up seeking $300,000 on a controversial intellectual survey<\/a> for the State University System of Florida to gauge if students feel they can express their views on campus. The Senate had not wanted to fund it all.<\/p>\n

Both sides are in agreement about how much money to spend to support a new law that expands the guardian program into higher education to allow faculty and staff to carry guns and protect Florida\u2019s public universities and state colleges. The House and Senate were in unison about two budget lines for $1.8 million and $4.2 million under \u201cpost secondary guardian program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Included in PECO funding was nearly $92 million to build a<\/a> 164,000-square-foot engineering building at Florida A&M University\/Florida State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe budget is a complicated process,\u201d Senate Appropriations Chair Ed Hooper<\/a> told reporters Friday<\/a> during a break as budget talks have lasted until midnight on some days. \u201cI can tell you that both sides are going to work through the weekend including Memorial Day. We know that we have a task to finalize.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Leaders say they can still finish before the end of May, but it could be close. A budget memo from House Speaker Daniel Perez has House Budget Chair Lawrence McClure and Senate Appropriations Chair Ed Hooper meeting at 8 a.m. Tuesday to hold talks \u201cuntil completion.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the budget hits desks that day, it starts the constitutionally required<\/a> 72-hour cooling-off period, teeing up a House floor vote Friday, May 29, with the Senate to follow before Sine Die \u2014 with a month to spare before the July 1 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

It would be the second straight year of a drawn-out budget; last year\u2019s wasn\u2019t passed until June 16<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a deadline looming to pass the budget, the House and Senate\u2019s top budget negotiators are still apart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[119999,58362,28,30,29,7290],"class_list":["post-281761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-2026-budget-conference","tag-ed-hooper","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-higher-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281761","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=281761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}