Florida Legislature Adjourns 2015 Special Session Sine Die With Budget Accord; Interim Committee Meeting Schedule Announced
Jun 20, 2015
The Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate adjourned the 2015-A Special Session Sine Die at 6:50 p.m. last night, June 19, 2015, after both chambers adopted SB 2500-A, the $78.7 billion State Budget. The Budget must be signed by Florida Governor Rick Scott by June 30 in order to avoid a government shutdown.
The Senate approved the Budget unanimously, whereas the House passed it by a 96-17 margin. Twenty-one of 37 House Democrats supported the measure, while State Representative John Tobia was the lone Republican who opposed it. The Governor will now have the opportunity to use his line-item veto power to strike any spending items he opposes.
To view a detailed summary of the Budget, click here.
2015-2016 Budget highlights are listed below.
Interim Committee Meeting Schedule Announced
Last night, the Legislature also announced the upcoming Interim Committee Meeting schedule:
- Wednesday, September 16 through Friday, September 18
- Monday, October 5 through Friday, October 9
- Monday, October 19 through Friday, October 23
- Monday, November 2 through Friday, November 6
- Monday, November 16 through Friday, November 20
- Monday, November 30 through Friday, December 4
The 2016 Regular Session will convene on Tuesday, January 12.
2015-2016 Florida Budget Highlights
Health Care
$32 billion of the State Budget has been allocated to Florida health care-related expenditure
- $25.4 billion will go to the Agency for Health Care Administration, including $400 million in state funds to draw down more than $600 million in federal funds for the Low Income Pool program.
- Legislators agreed to fund the Agency for Persons with Disabilities at $1.2 billion, the Department of Children and Families at $3 billion, the Department of Elder Affairs at $298 million, the Department of Health at $2.8 billion and the Department of Veterans Affairs at $108 million.
Courts
Florida’s court system received $419.4 million in overall funding. That money was distributed as follows:
- The Florida Supreme Court was allocated $34.4 million
- The District Courts of Appeal were allocated $61.2 million
- Circuit Courts were funded $332.6 million
- The County Courts received $87 million
- Judicial Administrated Funds were set at $1.2 million
- State Attorneys were provided $437.8 million
- Public Defenders and Appellate Public Defenders were allocated $232.9 million
- Capital Collateral Regional Counsels were funded $9.9 million
- Regional Conflict Counsels received $42.4 million
- Justice Administrative Commission was appropriated $92.1 million
The Budget also provided the Florida court system $14.7 million in recurring funds to address consistent shortfalls in the State Court Revenue Trust Fund.
Government Operations
- The Department of Business and Professional Regulation gets $151.4 million
- The Department of Citrus gets $45.6 million
- The Department of Financial Services gets $328.7 million
- The Department of the Lottery gets $169.5 million
- The Department of Revenue gets $575.3 million
- The Public Service Commission gets $25.1 million
- The Agency for State Technology, which exists within the Department of Management Services, will get $73.8 million, including $800,000 for an application modernization and migration study.
Department of Economic Opportunity
The Department of Economic Opportunity is funded at $1.13 billion for the upcoming fiscal year.
- Includes $43 million for “economic development tools” composed of incentive programs like the Quick Action Closing Fund and the Qualified Target Industry Business Tax Refund
Transportation
The Budget includes $10.1 billion in funding for the Department of Transportation and an increase in funding by $12 million for a total of $447.7 million for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
- Most of the Florida Department of Transportation money will go to its $9.3 billion workplan to repair Florida’s highway infrastructure.
- Includes $10 million to provide local governments with grants to improve railroads with new safety standards that would allow trains to pass through without sounding their horns. This money was placed within a larger appropriation for $191.4 million in rail development grants.
Agriculture and Natural Resources
$3.45 billion is going to funding Florida’s agriculture and natural resources budget segment.
- The Florida Department of Agriculture is funded at $1.6 billion
- The Department of Environmental Protection will receive $1.5 billion
- This includes a $17.4 million appropriation for the state’s land buying program Florida Forever.
- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was allocated $358 million
Note: The General Appropriations Act groups Transportation funding with the Environmental Budget, while the Department of Citrus funding ($45.6 million) is included in funding for the State’s General Government budget category.
Public Safety
Florida public safety agencies received a combined $3.6 billion in the Budget, with the largest share of that going to the Department of Corrections.
- Corrections received just over $2.35 billion for operating and fixed capital outlay costs, mostly from General Revenue ($2.279 billion). This is an increase from last year, largely as the result of a series of investigations and scandals that led the Legislature to appropriate the agency an extra $16.5 million to hire new staff and an additional $10 million to repair infrastructure that critics described as “crumbling.”
- The Department of Law Enforcement was allocated $ 270.4 million, including an extra $2.3 million to hire investigators to absorb the workload of investigating suspicions corrections-related deaths.
- The Department of Juvenile Justice was allocated $544.4 million, which includes a cost-sharing formula that determines what share of juvenile detention costs counties pay at a ratio of 47 to 53, with counties taking the larger portion, equating to approximately $4 million.
- The Department of Legal Affairs received $204.2 million, while the Commission on Offender Review ended the Session with $10 million.
Public Schools
The Budget includes $21.2 billion for schools and colleges across the state.
- $13.33 billion was allocated for public schools. Of that, $10.934 billion went to the Florida Education Finance Program which funds school operation. That amount will be matched with $7.6 billion in local taxes, for a $19.68 billion total.
- The Florida Education Finance Program saw an increase of $780 million from the current year (or a $206.52 increase in per-student funding to $7,096.96). While the new total funding level equates to a historic high, the per-student increase fell short of the $7,126.33 record.
- The remaining money of the $13.3 billion goes to various programs and initiatives of public schools and to fund the State Board of Education.
- Early Learning received $1.025 billion, with about $636 million going to the School Readiness program for low-income families and $389 million for state’s universal pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds.
- These numbers do not include a $500 million plan for school construction and maintenance around the state.
Higher Education
The Budget provides $4.54 billion for state universities which includes $1.9 billion in tuition assistance. Another $1.18 billion went for Florida Colleges, which does not include $840 million in tuition, rounding up its budget to $2 billion.
- The House and Senate gave performance funding to both systems. The universities have a $400 million system, receiving $150 million in new state money for putting up $250 million from base funding. Colleges have a $40 million system, with $20 million coming from college budgets and $20 million in new state money.
- Private colleges received $152 million and student financial aid was given $421.5 million.
- These numbers do not include a $500 million plan for school construction and maintenance around the state.
Affordable Housing
The Budget appropriates $175 million from Florida’s Sadowski Trust Fund toward affordable housing. This funding represents approximately 68 percent of the total available $256 million.
- Includes $8.3 million for homeless and other housing projects.
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