Budget standoff means Florida lawmakers will return amid ‘animosity,’ ‘mistrust’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —

For the second straight year, lawmakers will need extra time to complete the budget – the one bill the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass each year.

Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said talks with House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, on topline budget numbers are continuing, but they’ll end the session on Friday and return in mid-April to finish their work.

“I respect the priorities of each party, because we all have a role to play in a balanced budget that keeps Florida strong, safe and free,” Albritton said. “I look forward continued productive discussions on joint allocations in the coming weeks, and to resuming our work on the budget in the near future.”

Perez echoed those remarks.

“In the weeks ahead, we will continue working with our Senate counterparts to ensure we return in the proper posture to complete our constitutional responsibility of passing a state budget,” Perez said.

The move means all bills that don’t pass by Friday, the scheduled last day of the regular session, will die.

Unlike last year, when a standoff over tax cuts led to the extended session, there isn’t a single policy dispute that’s created the deadlock.

The $1.4 billion gap between the House and Senate’s preferred budgets isn’t that large considering the $115 billion current spending plan, but each chamber has refused to budge on priority bills for the other chamber.

“There’s a subtext of animosity and mistrust among what (former Governor) Lawton Chiles called the three legs of the stool – the Senate President, the House Speaker and the Governor. And I think that’s in our way,” Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, a former Senate President who has served in the Senate for more than a decade, told the News Service of Florida.

“It’s the same people coming back to the same place with the same grudges trying to do the same thing in the same way. So surprise, surprise, it doesn’t seem to work.”

That animosity and mistrust are lingering from last year’s session, when Gov. Ron DeSantis balked at a plan from Perez to cut the state sales tax, fearing it would crowd out his push for a large property tax cut. Albritton has mostly backed DeSantis’ agenda, while Perez has resisted it.

Last year, the dispute ended without any of the leaders getting their top priority passed – the compromise on the tax cuts didn’t include an overall sales tax cut or a property tax cut and Albritton’s push for an infusion of funding to rural areas, a bill known as ‘Rural Renaissance,’ didn’t pass either.

This year, the House didn’t consider the Rural Renaissance bill, and the Senate hasn’t addressed a property tax cut measure that passed the House.

DeSantis has been pushing for a property tax cut for more than a year, but hasn’t put forth a detailed plan to put on the November ballot. He said Thursday he prefers a special session concentrated solely on property taxes, something Albritton has said he’d support.

Other DeSantis priorities, such as a ban on vaccine mandates for children to be accepted to K-12 public schools and consumer protection restrictions on artificial intelligence, didn’t advance in the House.

Lawmakers are already set to return to the Capitol on April 20. DeSantis has called a special session to redraw congressional districts.

“I don’t know that there’s any magic elixir that can be poured in the water coolers here that can make it all go away,” Gaetz said. “That’s why they have elections. That’s why they have term limits.”

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