The Senate president and House speaker stepped in Sunday afternoon to take over budget negotiations, with several issues still in play as lawmakers race toward a Tuesday deadline to finish work on a nearly $83 billion spending plan. Talks over the weekend between Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, and House Appropriations Chairman Carlos Trujillo,…
As we enter the last week of the Session, a great deal of work remains if legislators hope to adjourn by Friday. Work on the budget is not complete and major policy issues remain unresolved. However, as always, things can happen very quickly. The House has no meetings or floor sessions scheduled for tomorrow but…
With barely three days left before lawmakers have to finalize the annual state budget if session is to end as scheduled May 5, Floridians still have very little idea what kind of compromise lawmakers are crafting behind closed doors when it comes to the most consequential reforms this year that affect K-12 public schools. Read…
After a day of anticipation, the PreK-12 Education Budget Conference Committee finally convened this evening at 6:15 pm. In an unexpected move, in the Senate Offer #1 on the budget, the Senate accepted the House position on the FEFP, thus closing any further negotiations on the FEFP. This agreement includes a rollback of the Required…
Tallahassee, FL – Week 8 of Florida’s Legislative Session is coming to an end, and will be heading into a weekend of Budget Conference Committee Meetings. Watch this FSBA Legislative Weekly Update for highlights. Be sure visit the FSBA Session Spotlight Blog and 2017 Legislative Session page for in-depth summaries, resources, and analyses.
Florida’s top two Republican legislative leaders, negotiating in secret over the past few days, have reached a sweeping deal on a new state budget and other high-priority items ranging from public employee benefits to building a reservoir to deal with toxic algae discharges. Read More
Today, Speaker Corcoran and President Negron published the allocations to be utilized by the various Budget Conference Committees and named the members of each Committee (please click HERE to see our chart listing the members and contact information for three of the Conference Committees having oversight of education related budget bills). The Conference Committees wasted…
As we have reported, Speaker Corcoran and President Negron have indicated that they had come to agreement on some major policy issues that would clear the way for these leaders to publish allocations for the Conference Committees to allow them to begin their work on resolving differences between the House and Senate budgets. However, as of…
State lawmakers reached a tentative deal on an $83 billion budget Tuesday that could end the session on time but could put them on a collision course with Gov. Rick Scott. A day after a stalemate threatened to derail the legislative session, Republican leaders in the House and Senate privately hammered out the broad terms…
In an unprecedented move, the House Appropriations Committee passed their “continuation” budget and related bills this morning. This continuation budget is basically the same budget passed for the current year with funding added for “workload” (for education, this mainly means funding to support student enrollment growth) and most funding removed for member supported local projects.…