By STAFF REPORTS
Top lawmakers and staff worked through Memorial Day weekend to settle on a $114.5 billion state budget, which the two chambers of lawmakers voted to approve on May 29.
The budget process halted in March at the end of the legislature’s annual legislative session without a deal and with the Florida Senate and Florida House of Representatives miles apart on key budget items. After a break past Mother’s Day, lawmakers returned for a special session to handle the budget in recent weeks.
While line items will still need to survive Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto pen, several key environmental items were included this year. Among them:
- $10 million for Apalachicola Bay oyster restoration to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, as reporter Bruce Ritchie noted in his Substack.
- Plus, an additional $4 million for oyster restoration to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- $425 million for Rural and Family Lands conservation easements.
- $20 million to FDACS for land management
- No new money for Florida Forever
- $164.5 million for citrus research, according to Florida Politics
- $45 million for Farmers Feeding Florida
- $3 million to fight Red Tide
- $14.1 million for beach projects
- $638.6 million total for Everglades restoration
- $424.7 million for the Central Everglades Planning Project
- More than $200 million in associated Everglades restoration projects
- $50 million for alternative water supply projects
- $25 million for the Indian River Lagoon
- $20 million for Biscayne Bay
- $60 million for the C-51 Reservoir
- $379.9 million for various water projects
- $64.1 million for beach projects
- $167 million for the petroleum tanks cleanup program
The budget contains additional grant programs, authority to spend various federal funding and other line items associated with FDACS, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Florida Department of Citrus.
Once lawmakers transmit the budget to DeSantis, who will have a 15-day period to sign, veto, or line-item veto budget items. The state’s fiscal year ends June 30.
