In Tallahassee, Governor Ron DeSantis has put forward a budget of $115.6 billion for the fiscal year 2025-2026. This budget suggests raising the salaries of state law enforcement officers and firefighters, doing away with a commercial-lease tax, and introducing a new sales-tax holiday specifically for guns and ammunition.
This proposal serves as an initial move before discussions among lawmakers to finalize the budget during the upcoming regular legislative session, commencing on March 4. It comes at a time when Governor DeSantis is at odds with House and Senate leaders regarding an immigration bill passed by lawmakers in a recent special session.
The 2025-2026 fiscal year will start July 1.
Governor DeSantis’s plan involves eliminating 741 government positions and aiming to reduce 50% of the state’s tax-supported debt by the fiscal year 2027-2028.
The proposal calls for $118.3 million in pay increases for state law-enforcement officers and firefighters. Entry level law-enforcement officers would see pay pushed up 20 percent, while veteran law enforcement officers and state firefighters would receive 25 percent increases, according to a summary of the proposal from the governor’s office.
The package also calls for $2.2 billion in tax cuts that mostly would come through the elimination over two years of a tax that businesses pay on commercial leases, a move long sought by business groups.
Under DeSantis’ proposal, the tax would go from 2 percent to 1 percent on Jan. 1, 2026, and then be crossed out a year later. The lease tax, imposed since 1969, went from 4.5 percent to 2 percent last year as part of a 2021 deal to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made by Floridians.
The governor’s proposal also calls for the return of sales-tax holidays, allowing shoppers to avoid paying sales taxes on school supplies and clothes in August, on disaster supplies at the start and the peak of the hurricane season and on recreational purchases throughout July.
He also proposed a “Second Amendment Summer” sales-tax holiday between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July that would temporarily remove sales taxes on ammunition, firearms and related items. The new tax holiday would save shoppers an estimated $8 million, according to the governor’s office.
The budget proposal doesn’t seek tuition or fee increases for students at Florida colleges or universities, and would maintain funding for the Bright Futures Scholarship Program at $632 million.
Per-student funding in the kindergarten through 12th-grade system would increase by $222, to $9,205.
In the environmental portion of the budget, DeSantis proposed $805 million for Everglades restoration projects. He also proposed such things as $3 million for removing invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades and constructing shooting and archery facilities in Liberty and Polk counties.
