TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis announced today his budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-2026. The proposed “Focus on Fiscal Responsibility” Budget totals $115.6 billion with $14.6 billion in reserves, providing a significant reduction over last year’s spending while still leaving ample resources for unforeseen economic issues. Florida has experienced record success under Governor DeSantis’ leadership, ranking #1 in education, net in-migration, entrepreneurship, and new business formations, with 2.7 million new businesses formed since 2019—all while eliminating spending and saving Florida taxpayers money. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget continues to model fiscal conservatism by paying down an additional $1.7 billion in tax-supported debt and providing $2.2 billion in tax relief, while reducing the size of government and continuing to produce meaningful investments for Floridians.
“Florida’s steadfast commitment to fiscal conservatism is why we are in such good financial shape,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Florida has experienced historic success by keeping government spending low while balancing significant investments in meaningful initiatives. These include expanding workforce education for high-demand jobs, providing family-first tax relief, ensuring that Florida’s students can access a quality education that fits their needs, expanding infrastructure to reduce congestion, and restoring the Everglades. It is proof positive that when you act responsibly with taxpayers’ money, success will follow. I look forward to accomplishing even more for this state in the coming year on this firm financial footing.”
To read the budget highlights, click here.
To read the transmittal letter, click here.
To read the budget FAQs, click here.
To read the budget one pager, click here.
Historic Tax Relief for Florida Businesses and Families
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget recommends $2.2 billion in tax relief for Florida families. The tax relief package permanently eliminates the Business Rent Tax, in addition to providing traditional and new sales tax holidays to help Floridians keep more money in their pockets. The tax package includes:
Home Hardening and Insurance Premium Reduction Programs
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget prioritizes home hardening programs to continue efforts to lower property insurance premiums for Floridians and help reduce the costly impacts of hurricane damage to homes across the state. The Budget invests over $600 million for the My Safe Florida Home and Condo grant programs to provide free inspections and cost sharing for approved home hardening and wind mitigation projects. This includes:
Educating Florida’s K-12 Students
Florida is the education state – ranking #1 in a variety of different educational categories, including overall education and education freedom. Florida has prioritized providing our students with a high-quality education that fits their individual needs. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget builds on Florida’s record investments in education, providing a historic $29.7 billion in funding for the K-12 public school system. This will include the highest per student investment ever, providing $9,205 per student, an increase of $222 over last year. This investment will also cover the costs of nearly 360,000 students who are projected to participate in Florida’s school choice program – the Family Empowerment Scholarship.
Additional funding highlights for Florida’s K-12 students include:
Florida Leads the Nation for Higher Education
Florida has ranked #1 for Higher Education for nearly a decade, while also holding the line on tuition to provide a quality education at an affordable price. The Governor’s Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Budget builds on Florida’s success and ensures that Florida will continue to have the top education system in the country.
For colleges and universities, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget recommends:
Providing a quality education that leads to quality jobs is an important part of ensuring that Florida’s workforce can continue to meet the demand of the job market. When the Governor took office, he set a goal of being the best state in the nation for workforce education by the year 2030, and Florida is well on its way to meet this goal, investing more than $10 billion in workforce education since 2019. The Governor’s Budget continues this progress by investing $766 million for workforce education programs, ensuring that Floridians can continue to access workforce education opportunities that lead to high-demand, high-wage jobs. This investment includes:
Keeping Florida’s Economic Development Running Strong
Florida is the fastest growing state in the nation because Governor DeSantis has championed freedom first policies and continued investments that create opportunities for Florida families to thrive. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget continues to make smart investments to support Florida’s infrastructure, workforce and economy to ensure we meet the demand of our growing state.
To support Florida’s transportation network and infrastructure, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests:
Additionally, the proposed budget makes the state’s annual investment in aggregate and construction materials permanent to support Florida-based materials.
To help create new jobs and support business development throughout the state, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests:
Florida’s rural communities are an important part of the success of our state, and the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget continues to provide our rural communities with the resources they need to thrive. This includes:
As Florida continues to grow and attract new workers, it is important to ensure that they can access housing in the communities that they work. To support workforce housing, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes:
Supporting Law Enforcement and the Military
Governor DeSantis has always recognized the invaluable contributions made to Florida by its law enforcement and military communities. They risk their lives every day to protect Floridians, and they will be on the front lines of combatting illegal immigration into our state. To support Florida’s law enforcement and military communities, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes:
Investing in Florida’s Everglades and Water Quality & Supply
Florida’s natural resources are directly tied to the economic strength of the state and provide important defenses against natural disasters such as hurricanes. Florida has made record investments in protecting our natural resources and conserving the Florida way of life, and Governor DeSantis continues this commitment in the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget.
During Governor DeSantis’ first term as Governor, he signed record investments to protect Florida’s Everglades and support water quality, investing a record $3.3 billion. At the start of his second term, he called for a historic $3.5 billion investment over the next four years. The Governor’s Budget recommends $1.5 billion for Everglades restoration and water quality, bringing the total investment during the Governor’s second term to $4.8 billion. This investment includes $805 million for Everglades restoration projects:
To continue protecting Florida’s water quality and supply, the Governor is recommending $550 million for targeted water quality improvements to achieve significant, meaningful, and measurable nutrient reductions in key waterbodies. This includes:
Additional water quality investments include $50 million to restore Florida’s world-renowned springs and for land acquisition to protect springsheds as well as $85 million to improve water quality and combat the impacts of harmful algal blooms, including blue-green algae and red tide. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes $60 million for the Alternative Water Supply Grant Program to help communities plan for and implement vital conservation, reuse and other alternative water supply projects.
To support conservation lands and to protect the great outdoors for generations of Floridians to enjoy, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests $69 million in Florida’s State Parks for infrastructure improvements and resource management with the goal of maintaining Florida’s world class parks, which have won the National Gold Medal a record four times. The budget also includes more than $132 million to protect Florida’s conservation lands and waterways to ensure Florida’s prized properties are accessible for future generations of Florida families. This funding includes $100 million for the Florida Forever Program, the state’s blueprint for conserving Florida’s natural and recreation lands, including those located within the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
Florida is home to 1,300 miles of coastline which plays an important role in Florida’s economy and quality of life, attracting visitors from across the world and providing an invaluable defense against hurricanes. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes $100 million in beach nourishment funding to bolster our shorelines. Additionally, the Governor is recommending $26.2 million for coral reef protection and restoration, including $11.2 million to continue Florida’s Coral Reef Restoration and Recovery Initiative established in Executive Order 23-06, to restore 25 percent of Florida’s Coral Reef by 2050.
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget also prioritizes the protection of Florida’s working agricultural lands and family farms, providing an annual appropriation of $100 million to the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program to enter into perpetual conservation easements. In order to preserve Florida’s iconic citrus industry, the budget invests more than $20 million for citrus research and the Citrus Health Response Program. This includes $7 million for research and additional advertising by the Department of Citrus.
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget also includes $30 million to restore Florida’s Oyster’s reefs in Apalachicola Bay. Over the last two decades, bay wide declines in oyster reef size from over 2,000 acres to less than 100 acres resulted in a reduction of oyster populations that led to the ongoing fishery closure, instituted in 2020. This project will provide for continued restoration in Apalachicola Bay in support of sustainable oyster reefs that protect and enhance the ecosystem services this natural resource provides to the public.
To further protect Florida’s rural areas and communities surrounded by Florida’s beautiful forests, the Governor’s Budget provides $4 million to support the replanting of trees and timber impacted by hurricanes and natural disasters, in addition to investing over $45 million in Florida’s efforts to effectively combat wildfires including equipment, and wildfire suppression activities, such as prescribed burning.
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget also includes $206 million for the cleanup of contaminated sites with a focus on promoting redevelopment of these areas once cleanup has been completed.
Supporting Disaster Response, Recovery and Mitigation
In 2024, Governor DeSantis, the Division of Emergency Management, state agencies and local partners rose to the significant challenges imposed by disasters including hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton. The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget provides $1.24 billion in state and federal funding for disaster recovery, mitigation, and emergency management to continue helping Floridians impacted by a disaster while preparing for future disasters.
This includes $344 million in state match for the state cost share associated with authorized federal funding to eligible local and state recipients for reimbursement of the response and recovery cost, as well as state management costs relating to federally declared disasters.
Strong infrastructure is the best way to protect the state’s shorelines against the impacts of a future hurricane, and that includes both natural and physical infrastructure improvements. With the additional investment of $261 million for infrastructure projects in our local communities, Governor DeSantis has invested over $2 billion to strengthen the state’s coastal infrastructure and helped communities prepare for the impacts of flooding and hurricanes through targeted funding and directives that enhance efforts to protect our inland waterways, coastlines, shores, and coral reefs—all of which serve as invaluable defenses against flooding.
Additionally, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes $150 million in additional federal Community Development Block Grant funds for local hurricane recovery and hardening efforts throughout the state, including the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program and the Community Development Block Grant Mitigation Program.
Investing in a Healthier Florida
Governor DeSantis has been steadfast in his commitment to supporting the healthy lives of Floridians. This includes providing support for those struggling with mental health and substance abuse and victims of human trafficking in addition to supporting Florida’s seniors, Floridians with unique abilities, veterans, and Florida’s mothers and children. The Governor has also prioritized critical cancer research and innovative treatments.
To support mental health resiliency and those suffering from substance abuse, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget recommends:
To support important cancer research, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget includes:
To support Florida’s mothers, their children, and the children in the child welfare system, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests:
To support Florida’s seniors, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget recommends:
To support Floridians with unique abilities, the Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests more than $93.7 million in funding to allow additional individuals with disabilities to be provided with necessary services through the Home and Community Based Services Waiver. Funding is also provided to support the planning and development of a new waiver to provide targeted services for adults with unique abilities who are entering adulthood.
The Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Budget invests an additional $15.3 million to support capital improvements for the State Veterans’ Nursing Homes. The budget continues an investment of $2 million to assist veterans to develop valuable skills, secure employment, and start businesses, while providing Florida employers with a reliable source of trained and experienced professionals.