Florida special session: House, Senate and DeSantis billions apart on spending plan as budget deadline nears

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - For the second year in a row, Florida lawmakers have been forced into overtime to finalize the state budget.

The backstory:

Legislators returned to Tallahassee Tuesday to kick off a special session. Their one and only constitutional requirement is to pass a state budget before the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

"I still think at the end of the process, the Senate will come down off our number. The House will come up on their number, and we'll meet at a number. I think it'll be somewhere in the $114 billion range — that's a lot of money," State Sen. Ed Hooper, R-Palm Harbor, told FOX 13.

"When it comes to the numbers in the budget, what I would say is that we still have a lot of conversations to go. I want to make sure that there are actually good proposals in this budget that would help Floridians with the affordability crisis that they're facing," State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said.

The proposals

By the numbers:

Here’s what’s been proposed:

• House: $113.6 billion
• Senate: $115 billion
• Governor: $117.4 billion

Lawmakers will spend the next couple of weeks locked in on conference committees, hashing out funding for various state departments.

Senate plan

Looking at the Senate's proposal, health and human services makes up over 45% of the total budget. Education is the second-biggest piece of the pie. Then, there’s also money for transportation and the environment.

"But, then they still have to, within each of those areas, decide exactly which programs are going to get which amounts of money," Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said. "It literally is a line-by-line process."

"Some people would think, ‘Maybe why are we spending so much money in the Everglades?’" Hooper said. "Well, that's important. It's the river of grass. The world knows about the Everglades and keeping it healthy."

From now until the end of the month, lawmakers must figure out exactly where to trim, while also finding room for tax relief.

"We also know in Tampa Bay, where I live, it's very difficult to find affordable housing, sometimes close to your job," Driskell said. "And so, it's basically getting to the point where people are worried about even driving to work to be able to afford the gas bill. So, we need to suspend that gas tax."

House proposal

 The House plan targets raises for state law enforcement, prison guards, park rangers and state attorneys. It also proposes $300 million toward K-12 education funding.

"Some things that I'll be watching. Certainly, the higher education budget, the pre-K-12 budget. I'll be watching what happens with affordable housing," Driskell said.

In addition to debating over dollars, experts point out that the overtime session is the result of a broader, political tug-of-war in Tallahassee.

"Some of it is political in that the speaker of the House and the Senate president are trying to show that they are an equal branch to the governor, and so that’s come[s] into play as well," Jewett said.

What's next:

Negotiations between the House and Senate committees will take place through Friday. Then, unresolved issues will be subject to talks between Budget Committee Chairmen Rep. Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, and Hooper.

The special session is slated to last until May 29.

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