Florida legislature passes budget with $1 billion in taxpayer savings

The Florida legislature on Monday finalized details on a $112.1 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year that includes $1 billion in savings for taxpayers.

HB 5001, the General Appropriations Act, is now headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk. He’s expected to sign it.

“The savings in this tax package for Floridians are immense,” House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, said. “We expand sales tax holidays, like Freedom Week, Hurricane Preparedness, and Back-to-School Holidays while also focusing tax relief on much-needed every day items like diapers, tools, energy-efficient appliances, and pet supplies to make sure more money stays in people’s pockets.”

The Florida Senate also voted on HB 7071, a series of long- and short-term sales tax relief initiatives, which if signed into law will deliver $658 million in broad-based tax savings.

The tax package approved by the legislature expands the annual Back to School and Disaster Preparedness Holidays from 10 days to two weeks, retains the Freedom Week sales tax holiday introduced last year, creates a seven-day sales “Tool Time” tax holiday through Labor Day for tools for skilled workers, and implements a state tax moratorium on the sale of motor fuel during October.

It creates new sales tax holidays for one year for those purchasing baby and toddler clothes and children’s diapers and ENERGY STAR refrigerators, washers, dryers and water heaters. Consumers who purchase impact-resistant windows, doors and garage doors won’t have to pay sales tax for two years. Those who purchase children’s books over three months during summer won’t have to pay sales tax either.

It also raises the cap on the New Worlds Reading Initiative tax credit program from $50 million to $60 million in FY 2023-24 and provides tax relief on the sale of farm trailers and tickets to the Daytona 500, among other provisions.

“The Florida Legislature has negotiated the largest tax package for everyday Floridians in the history of the state,” state Rep. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, Ways & Means Committee chair, said. “We are laser focused on delivering a billion dollars in broad-based tax relief to hardworking Floridians. Floridians don’t need help finding things to spend money on. They need help cutting the cost on things they already spend money on and that’s what we’re delivering.”

The bill also expands the list of overseas military personnel who qualify for the deployed service-member homestead exemption, increases property tax exemptions for widows, widowers, the blind and disabled by 10 times the current cap, and provides retroactive property tax relief for owners of Champlain Towers South Tower properties in Surfside, among other provisions.

Senator Annette Taddeo, D-40, who’s running for governor, said the bill doesn’t do enough.

“Florida's budget is our state's value statement, and while this budget spends a record amount of money, Tallahassee Republicans failed to address the real struggles everyday Floridians are facing,” she said.

“Florida has quickly become one the most unaffordable states to live in the country. We have an affordable housing crisis, skyrocketing property insurance rates, and a crumbling infrastructure. We had a chance to invest in critical infrastructure, widening and fixing our roads, expanding our ports, modernizing our schools - and to use the extra COVID money from President [Joe] Biden to make healthcare finally affordable for millions of hardworking Floridians, and to provide meaningful and direct relief to Floridians.”

The budget invests more than $300 million in affordable housing, with $100 million allocated to provide down payment assistance for teachers, health care workers, law enforcement, and others. It also expands the donations cap for the Community Contribution Tax Credit Program.

The Florida legislature has spent over $1 billion since 2019 expanding its ports and infrastructure, which led, in part, to the first international shipping company from East Asia choosing a Florida port over a California port.

DeSantis also proposed record-level funding for K-12 education, providing bonuses to teachers for a second year in a row; colleges and universities were slated to receive roughly $4 billion, also a record.

Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, said the budget “invests in the workers who serve our state and her people. We are investing $1 billion to ensure Floridians who work for, or contract with, the state, and spend each day educating, protecting and caring for others in our communities earn at least $15 per hour.

“Businesses are having to implement the $15 per hour wage in the midst of the highest inflation in a generation, so I think it’s only appropriate that state government do the same,” Simpson added. “This budget also gives every state employee a 5.38 percent raise to account for inflation.”

The budget also improves the state’s Child Welfare System by enhancing benefits for caregivers who are relatives and increases the childcare subsidy for foster families.

“We build on the efforts that began last year to infuse a steady stream of funds into affordable housing programs, wastewater projects, including septic-to-sewer conversions, and to mitigate sea-level rise,” Simpson said.

It also allocates historic funding toward environmental restoration and clean water projects and bolsters the state’s rainy-day fund to historic levels.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Senator Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said the final budget “reflects a responsible, balanced approach that funds key state needs with recurring state funds, while utilizing nonrecurring federal pandemic funds to make strategic investments in Florida’s infrastructure.”

This includes directing funding to broadband expansion and maintenance, repair, and construction of educational institutions, she said.

“Floridians will see the impacts of these one-time, generational investments for years to come. This funding will not only create jobs in our local communities, but also help develop the educational, transportation, environmental, and public safety infrastructure our state needs as we continue to grow,” she said.

The budget also prioritizes funding for public safety initiatives, including increasing the salaries of state firefighters, assistant state attorneys and public defenders.

“While Florida is experiencing a 40-year low crime rate and declining prison population, we have heard for years that Florida’s prison system is in dire need of support due to high staff turnover and deteriorating facilities,” she said. The budget addresses this in several ways. It increases correctional officer salaries to a minimum of $20 per hour and provides retention pay, increases salaries for state law enforcement, probation and juvenile detention officers, and makes an historic investment in a new 4,500-bed prison and a new prison hospital.

“These efficient, state-of-the-art facilities will be safer for both officers and inmates and will allow us to close older, less efficient facilities and save on maintenance and repair dollars,” she says.