TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's budget battle shows no signs of a resolution as lawmakers returned to Tallahassee this week, still without a deal. There are heightened concerns about what could become the first government shutdown in state history.
House lawmakers reconvened Tuesday, but only briefly.
House Speaker Rep. Danny Perez, R-Miami, placed the blame squarely on the Senate and President Ben Albritton, accusing them of abandoning a tax-cut compromise struck weeks ago.
"Unfortunately, as you are already aware, the Senate broke the deal that we had reached on Day 60 and blew up our budget framework," Perez said.
In a memo to the upper chamber, sent last Friday, Albritton objected to the original "framework." He argued the governor was likely to veto, the proposed permanent tax cuts went too deep, and that they wouldn’t provide meaningful relief to Floridians via a reduction in sales taxes.
"I don't think we're at risk of a shutdown, but I don't think we're any closer than we were three weeks ago," Perez told reporters after the Tuesday floor session. "I think we had to start all over again."
Despite the chaos, Perez said the House remains open to "any and all ideas that curb the state budget," though he took a swipe at the governor's rebate program for homesteaders, dismissing it as little more than "checks from the state treasury."
Lawmakers voted to extend the session through June 30, buying more time for a deal, though not without complications for legislators balancing work back home.
"It is a huge inconvenience, because court cases set the judges are going to have to continue them, but they're not going to be happy," state Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, said.
Democrats, meanwhile, are placing the blame for the impasse on the Republican supermajorities. They caution what a shutdown would mean if lawmakers can't pass a budget by July 1, the new fiscal year.
"I think that a shutdown, though, to be clear, would be catastrophic, because there are all sorts of state services that would stop,” said FL House Minority Leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa. And I don't know what this means for our teachers, for state employees being furloughed, for transportation projects that stop, that you know could help communities locally with their traffic."
Gov. Ron DeSantis has also weighed in — harshly. He's taken particular aim at the House, calling its motives political.
"You've got some of these folks in ... the House leadership, they have a personal agenda," DeSantis said Monday. "They have vendettas, a petty it's not being driven by strong policy."
In a rare move, House Republicans asked DeSantis to essentially put his money where his mouth is. The House Select Committee invited him to present his property tax relief ideas at their next meeting, sending this letter.
"We're trying to include all resources. We've said since the very beginning that everything is on the table right now," state Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Stuart, said. "And certainly, as the leader of the state, as our governor, we want information from him."
But DeSantis isn't expected to respond. His communications director, Bryan Griffin, posted this online.
"This is the design of a committee intended to kill an idea like property tax relief," Griffin said.
Meanwhile, the Senate remains largely silent with its members absent from the Capitol and its leadership yet to commit to extending the session beyond June 6. With a little more than three weeks remaining before a shutdown, the uncertainty continues — and so does the waiting.
