{"id":79351,"date":"2025-12-11T03:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T03:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/79351\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T03:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T03:30:10","slug":"desantis-unveils-2026-budget-plan-uthmeier-sues-starbucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/79351\/","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis unveils 2026 budget plan; Uthmeier sues Starbucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ron DeSantis releases his final budget proposal ahead of next year’s legislative session, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier files a lawsuit against Starbucks.<\/p>\n

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

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the details of his last budget proposal Wednesday. The proposal calls for $117 billion in spending, an increase of $2.2 billion from\u00a0last year\u2019s $115.6 billion\u00a0in proposals.<\/p>\n

The governor highlighted expenditures for education, including $1.56 billion for teacher pay increases across the state. Other educational line items included $30.6 billion for the overall K-12 budget, with an additional $1.7 billion earmarked for early childhood education.<\/p>\n

Comparatively,\u00a0DeSantis\u2019 proposal<\/a>\u00a0for last year\u2019s budget called for $29.7 billion for the K-12 system, and $465.8 million for Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten initiatives.<\/p>\n

DeSantis also announced a plan to spend $4 billion on the state\u2019s university system.<\/p>\n

Additionally, he highlighted planned pay increases for state law enforcement, and he hopes to extend the current recruitment bonus program, which pays out $5,000 for new recruits.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s budget proposal, he called for $118.3 million in pay increases to law enforcement and firefighters.<\/p>\n

For Transportation, DeSantis outlined $15.4 billion for the Department of Transportation, as well as $14.3 billion for the state transportation work program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeSantis also outlined spending for health care across the state. the governor plans to spend $8.6 million for improvements to the State Veteran’s Nursing Homes, and $36.6 million for child wellfare system funding that will help foster parents, caregivers, and community-based services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, DeSantis is seeking to provide $159 million for behavioral health services, including preadmission diversion and discharge services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeSantis\u2019 first budget was $91 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Uthmeier sues Starbucks over hiring practices<\/p>\n

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that he is suing Starbucks for allegedly using DEI ideas to implement \u201cillegal race-based policies for hiring and advancement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uthmeier said that his allegations would violate Florida\u2019s civil rights laws.<\/p>\n

In the complaint filed in the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida, it says Starbucks has \u201copenly maintained racially discriminatory employment policies and practices over the past five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStarbucks made DEI more than a slogan. They turned it into a mandatory hiring and promotion system based on race. The coffee empire set numerical racial targets for their workforce, and they tied executive bonuses to hitting those targets. That is not diversity. That is discrimination, and in Florida, it is against the law,\u201d Uthmeier wrote on a post on X.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier added that every worker in the state deserves to be hired on merit, qualification and character, not race.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Ron DeSantis releases his final budget proposal ahead of next year’s legislative session, and Florida Attorney General…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2198,28,30,29,2197,2200,2204,2203,115,139,2206,2199,2201,275,135,2032,835,2196],"class_list":["post-79351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-political-connections","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-holly-gregory","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-instagram-n13","tag-jason-delgado","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-political-connections","tag-political-connections-full-episode-ctv","tag-political-connections-in-line-video-player","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-tampa","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod","tag-ybeth-bruzual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79351","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=79351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}