Governor Ron DeSantis has officially signed the state’s budget for the upcoming year. The signature comes after months of fighting from the state’s top Republicans.
The governor sliced about $1.6 billion from the budget using his line-item veto power. Now, next year’s budget will come in at about $117 billion. It's just a couple billion larger than the last year’s budget.
DeSantis’ says the state is spending less in his tenure when adjusted for inflation.
“If you just kept spending constant from where we were four years ago, and just based on inflation, that would have put us to $132.5 billion. So, we are not only spending less in nominal terms, which we are, but really far less in terms of inflation-adjusted," he said.
Just how much to spend was one of the key sticking points for legislative leadership in the Florida House and Senate. Their disagreements extended budget negotiations into late May, several months after the state’s regular session ended. DeSantis signed the budget with just days to spare before the start of the next fiscal year.
