The Florida state legislative session ended Friday with lawmakers approving a $117.46 billion budget for
This year's budget provides another $500 million toward
The general fund budget totals roughly $49.4 billion, a 7.2% increase from the current fiscal year's budget and will be funded mostly out of general revenue collections and $117 million in trust fund transfers, according to the state Division of Bond Finance.
The budget includes about $1.5 billion of tax relief, including $450 million of toll savings,
In the last two years, residents have seen $4.2 billion of tax savings, with almost $1 billion of toll savings,
The budget also includes a $300 million transfer to the budget stabilization fund which will increase the balance of the fund to $4.4 billion.
Florida has no state income tax. The state has paid down debt over the past several years, and this year's budget includes a $14.6 billion surplus, which doesn't include the $200 million that came in over revenue estimates in February.
Since DeSantis took office in 2019, Florida officials say the state has paid down $5.3 billion of state debt, or 25% of the state's total debt.
From a financial management and budgetary perspective, Florida is doing a good job of managing its finances, said Ben Watkins, director of Florida's Division of Bond Finance.
"The big news for us — in our budget is a $500 million appropriation to reduce our debt," Watkins told The Bond Buyer on Tuesday. "This can be done either through defeasances or tenders, which we plan to do."
He said that while this wasn't their first rodeo when it came to debt reduction, it did have some new wrinkles to it.
"We've been at this for a while, but not at this level and not receiving an affirmative appropriation to proactively take down our debt load," he said.
Florida is rated triple-A by Moody's Investors Service, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings and all three assign stable outlooks to the state.
The Florida State Board of Administration Finance Corporation may issue up to $3.8 billion of taxable revenue bonds this year to buttress the state's
Proceeds would go toward replenishing the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Finance Corp. The corporation is the financing arm for the Cat Fund.
In July, Fitch affirmed its AA ratings on the Cat Fund's outstanding
Also last July,
In 2023, issuers across Florida were
This year's budget includes about $1.5 billion of
"I'm proud of our members for addressing the problems facing Floridians with both short-term and long-term solutions," said House Speaker Paul Renner.
"Over the past two years, we took on DEI and ESG," Renner said. "We expanded school choice to every Florida student. We modernized how we deliver public education funding to our schools. We put Silicon Valley and Big Tech's cronies on alert that our children do not belong to them. We expanded mental health services. We stood up for our ally, Israel, and in a unified voice declared 'never again.' We put aside historic reserves to pay down state debts ... and unlike Washington, D.C., we balanced our budget and lived up to the promises we made to our constituents."
Passidomo, the outgoing Senate president, said lawmakers focuses on "kitchen-table issues" that were important to both young families and senior citizens.
"Our work to stabilize and strengthen Florida's property insurance market is starting to bear fruit. We know families can't wait. Every little bit helps," Passidomo said. "Cutting the taxes associated with flood insurance and property insurance premiums is important for families trying make ends meet as our insurance market strengthens."
Senate President-Designate Ben Albritton said the Legislature passed a fiscally conservative and balanced budget that cut taxes, pays down debt and saved resources for a more challenging time.
"It is our responsibility to spend state revenue wisely and give back every dollar that we can to the families who earned it. In fact, the tax relief package we passed cuts the taxes on property insurance by $500 million — that truly means something to a family trying to make ends meet," he said.
Senate Democrats noted there was a greater sense of cooperation among lawmakers compared to last year's session.
"While the Florida Senate rejected more culture war bills and there was a greater spirit of bipartisanship, there was more we could have done to help Floridians with their kitchen table issues: housing, food insecurity, infrastructure, transportation, child care affordability, healthcare costs — the list goes on," they said in a statement in their response to the end of the 2024 session
"Thankfully this session we spent less time on culture wars," said Sen. Tracie Davis, who added, however "we missed significant opportunities to address property insurance rates, public safety, affordable healthcare, and other issues that are actually important to Floridians."
Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book agreed more should have been done to address the property insurance problems the state is facing.
"This session left much to be desired for Floridians who are facing daily, pressing problems like the skyrocketing cost of property insurance and rising costs of living," Book said.
"I am leaving this session with a sense of optimism that I haven't felt in a long time," said Sen. Jason Pizzo. "This Legislature has demonstrated that we can work across the aisle on reasonable and rational policy."
Florida TaxWatch, and an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit taxpayer research institute, said the tax relief package contained several provisions supported by its research, including sales tax holidays, a new child care tax credit, the automatic extension of tax-filing deadlines in a disaster and allowing the re-opening of tax assessment challenges when the deadline was missed due to circumstances beyond the taxpayers' control.
"The bill also contains other taxpayer-friendly tax administration changes. The biggest tax cut is a one-year reduction in property insurance taxes and assessments ($554.7 million). Unfortunately, another reduction in the Business Rent Tax did not make the final package," the group said.
The budget now goes to DeSantis, who has 15 days to review and approve the spending plan or veto individual line-item appropriations before the budget is finalized. It goes into effect on July 1.
In economic news Monday, Florida's private sector job growth increased 0.4% in January, or by 37,900 jobs, FloridaCommerce reported. The state's labor force increased 2.2%, or by 243,000 jobs, on a year-over-year basis.
The monthly gain is double the national rate of 0.2% while the year-over-year growth figure is faster than the national rate of 0.8%.
"Florida's commitment to jobseekers and job creators keep us on our front foot ahead of the inflationary pressures created by D.C," said Secretary of Commerce J. Alex Kelly.
In January, the education and health services sector gained the most jobs among all major industries followed by the tourism professions of leisure and hospitality and professional and business services.
Revised economic data from 2023 also showed the state's economy surpassed original estimates.
The Miami metropolitan statistical area in January saw the highest number of private sector jobs of all metro areas in the state in January.
Private sector employment in the Miami area increased 3.8% with the unemployment rate dropping to 1.4% from 1.9% in January 2023.
The Miami metro area led all metro areas in job gains over the year in the leisure and hospitality sectors, construction, professional and business services, financial activities and manufacturing.
