TALLAHASSEE—An hour before midnight on the 105th day of session, the Florida Legislature approved a $115.1 billion budget for the next fiscal year, putting the much-anticipated kibosh on a drawn-out standoff between Republican leaders.
The near-unanimous vote across both chambers Monday night after 11 p.m. saved the Florida government from a partial shutdown, which would have left some state workers unpaid had a budget not been approved before the July 1 deadline.
Lawmakers, who extended the regular 60-day session multiple times in a scramble to finalize the budget, agreed late Friday night to a $115.13 billion budget. That's roughly $470 million less than Gov. Ron DeSantis's proposal, and over $3 billion less than the current budget.
"In my knowledge, there's been no other process of a budget like this year," Senate budget chair Ed Hooper said from the Senate Floor Monday night. "We have had shouting matches, we have had finger pointing with our friends across the rotunda, we've had discussions.
But at the end of the day we sat down face to face and we got a deal—and nobody on either side can claim 'we won' because I hope the state of Florida won," Hooper added. House budget chair Lawrence McClure agreed, calling the process a "herculean task."
It was approved unanimously in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House, with just 2 of 105 voting members saying "no."
The mostly-yes vote marked the end of bitter infighting amongst the Florida GOP—the first of its kind seen under the DeSantis administration. In what was once described as a "circular firing squad" by a Republican insider, 2025 began with Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Danny Perez leading a rare rebellion against the governor.
The feud, which briefly ended after DeSantis and lawmakers compromised with a hefty illegal immigration bill, was revived months later when Perez tried to overturn the governor's line-item vetoes from the previous year before investigating the First Lady's Hope Florida charity.
This time, Albritton stayed silent.
By the end of the session, Albritton—though he later denied it—appeared to side with DeSantis against Perez by opposing the Speaker's call for a permanent sales tax cut.
What's in the Budget?
The budget is the only package state lawmakers are constitutionally required to approve. To avoid a partial government shutdown, it must be passed and signed before July 1, the start of the fiscal year.
Some of the major points lawmakers agreed to include cutting more than 1,000 vacant government positions, funding $614 million for Everglades protections, and allocating $57 million to food and security programs fow low income Floridians. $580 million wil go toward debt repayment.
They also set aside $750 million per year into state reserves, and agreed to grant state workers a 2% raise—with a minimum of $1,000—and hiking certain salaries for teachers, law enforcement, and judges.
Separately, the chambers agreed to fund $560 million for individual projects.
As part of the budget deal, transmitted at 10:04 p.m. Friday on the 102nd day of session, lawmakers approved a sweeping $1.3 billion tax cut. Around $900 million of that slashes taxes for businesses and various special interest groups.
Some of the main cuts include permanently establishing a month-long back-to-school tax holiday in August—expected to save consumers as much as $167 million annually—and eliminating sales taxes on certain bike helmets, sunscreens, bug spray, generators, and batteries.
Other cuts repeal the business rent tax, the aviation fuel tax, and prospectively exempts the sales tax for NASCAR admission tickets.
The tax package passed the House in a 93 to 7 vote and the Senate 32 to 2.
The budget, which DeSantis has just two weeks to approve or veto, wraps up the session 45 days after its original expiration date. DeSantis has line-item veto power, meaning he could eliminate certain parts of the budget without killing it in its entirety.
