House and Senate leaders still don’t have a deal on topline budget numbers, although offers continue to be exchanged between the chambers, one top negotiator said Friday.
“Close means we're there. We're not quite there,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Ed Hooper told reporters. “But I'm optimistic that it's closer than last session.”
Lawmakers ended their regular session on March 13 without agreeing to a spending plan for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. While talks are ongoing, no breakthrough to the logjam has been reached.
Before the regular session ended, the House had put forward a $113.6 billion proposal, about $1 billion less than the current budget that ends June 30. The Senate plan came in at $115 billion.
The two chambers have been unable to agree on dollar amounts available for negotiations on different budget areas, such as education, health care, transportation and the environment.
Hooper, a Trinity Republican, was in Tallahassee for a Joint Legislative Budget Commission meeting. House Budget Chairman Lawrence McClure, R-Dover, participated in the meeting by phone.
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Lawmakers are currently scheduled to be in Tallahassee next week for a special session on congressional redistricting, but Hooper said the budget will not be added to the mix.
“We’d like to get this resolved,” Hooper said of the Senate’s outlook.
“I don’t think anybody is stonewalling,” he added. “We’re just at the point where the easy stuff is resolved. Now it’s - each chamber has its priorities. Each presiding officer has their priorities and what is important to them. We’ll get there.”
Hooper said parts of the budget involving natural resources and transportation, tourism, and economic development “have the most difference in dollar amounts.”
But McClure disputed that, saying "I don't know what numbers he's looking at," in an interview with the News Service of Florida.
The fiscal year starts July 1, and a budget must be in place to avoid a partial state government shutdown.
Last year, a disagreement between House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, over the scope of tax cuts pushed the session to an extra 45 days.
Hooper also said he hopes the process doesn’t extend into June.
On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the budget shouldn’t be that difficult.
“I must confess that I kind of sensed that they wouldn’t do it on time, during the legislative session,” DeSantis said while in Tallahassee for a bill signing event. “But I’m surprised that they don’t seem to have anything done up to this point. So, that is going to be an issue that’s going to need to be addressed quickly.”
DeSantis added that until last year the process wasn’t difficult as “most of these members have voted for relatively similar priorities in terms of infrastructure, environment and all of these other things.”
“Dragging this out is certainly not advisable. It’s not something that I am going to be amenable to, with the authority that I have, to force issues when they need to be forced,” DeSantis said.
