TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Florida lawmakers reached a late-night deal on the state’s $115 billion budget.<\/p>\n
The agreement came after an extended special session when leaders couldn’t reach a deal during the regular session in March. The budget covers the fiscal year starting July 1.<\/p>\n
The spending plan includes funding for private school scholarships, Everglades restoration and a drug assistance program for HIV patients. Legislators are set to vote on it this week before sending it to Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lawmakers agreed on a spending plan less than the Senate’s preferred budget. Education was one of the key points during the regular session.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers agreed to keep $4.5 billion for private school scholarships. That’s for the K-12 public schools.<\/p>\n
The move comes as school districts in areas like Glades County faced declining enrollment. The state’s Board of Education stepped in in March after the school district was deemed broke to oversee spending.<\/p>\n
Legislators approved a provision to prevent similar cuts in other counties. The budget also included healthcare funding.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers agreed to provide $20 million for the Cancer Innovation Fund. The fund, championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis, will support cancer research.<\/p>\n
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$75 million will go to the AIDS Assistance Program. It faced cuts earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The budget includes more than half a billion dollars for Everglades restoration projects. This was a major point for DeSantis, who threatened to veto the spending plan if it didn’t include enough for those projects.<\/p>\n
The budget sets aside $514 million for Everglades restoration. House budget chief Lawrence McClure said the amount is well above the statutory minimum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Florida lawmakers reached a late-night deal on the state’s $115 billion budget. The agreement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3879,412,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-284286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-everglades","tag-ron-desantis","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284286","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=284286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}