TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida could be headed towards a state government shutdown.
Concerns over what would be an unprecedented failure to reach a budget agreement before the July 1st deadline come after the House and Senate announced Friday that they had scrapped a budget framework deal they’d been working towards.
The Florida House is set to vote to extend the 2025 legislative session through June 30th on Tuesday.
“It’s an unfortunate day. It’s sad, it’s disheartening,” said House Speaker Daniel Perez (R-Miami).
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Speaker Perez pins the blame on Governor Ron DeSantis, who vowed to veto any budget that includes the House-backed permanent sales tax cut.
DeSantis has suggested it could jeopardize his plan to cut or eliminate property taxes, which would have to be approved by voters in the next election.
“Here’s what we care about in the House. We want to cut wasteful spending. We want to make sure it’s in a recurring manner, not one time,” said Perez.
UNF political science professor Dr. Michael Binder noted, while there is still time to strike a deal before the new budget year, we’re likely headed for a nail-biter with lawmakers starting over from scratch this late in the year.
“This is, you know, something that isn’t actually out of the realm of possibility,” said Binder.
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In the event of a shutdown, everything from state parks to the DMV and schools could be impacted.
Even if a deal is potentially struck before July 1st, the delay in budget certainty will likely pose challenges for school districts, local governments and state agencies as they look to craft their upcoming budgets.
“They can’t even agree on a top line number of what the ultimate budget should be, before you start dividing it up and saying you get this piece, this gets that piece. We’re really far away from something here,” said Binder.
Speaking Monday, Governor DeSantis suggested he remains optimistic a deal will be reached in time.
He argued causing a government shutdown would be “politically really, really dumb”.
“All you have to do is just copy and paste what’s been done. Yeah, do little flourishes on it of course, but this is not like you’re having to reinvent the wheel,” said DeSantis.
And as Dr. Binder noted, the true deadline to reach a budget deal is June 27th, as lawmakers have to wait 72 hours after publishing the budget before they can take a final vote on it.
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