ICYMI: Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Florida Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget, Capping Eight Years of Conservative Leadership and Historic Results

June 29, 2026

Governor's Press Office 850-717-9282 [email protected]

Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Florida Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget, Capping Eight Years of Conservative Leadership and Historic Results

Tampa, Fla.- Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026-2027, a $117.6 billion spending plan that reflects nearly eight years of conservative leadership anchored by fiscal discipline, responsible governance, and strategic investment. Following nearly $810 million in line-item vetoes, the budget marks the fourth consecutive year of declining state spending while continuing record investments in education, infrastructure, public safety, environmental conservation, and economic opportunity. The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget represents the culmination of an administration that proved conservative governance can simultaneously reduce the size of government, pay down debt, build record reserves, lower taxes, and make historic investments in Florida's future.

"Over the last seven and a half years, Florida has set the national standard for conservative governance, while breaking record after record in economic strength, education, and environmental stewardship," said Governor Ron DeSantis. "We've delivered billions in tax relief to families while making historic investments in the priorities that matter most to Floridians. The FY 2026-2027 Budget I signed today reflects the core priorities I laid out from the beginning. This budget protects taxpayers' interests, cuts spending for the fourth year in a row, and makes meaningful investments to build on Florida's successes in education, public safety, environmental conservation, infrastructure, cancer research, and more. I'm proud that Florida continues to serve as the prime example of fiscal responsibility and government that works for the people of our state."

Throughout Governor DeSantis' administration, Florida has consistently demonstrated that strong fiscal stewardship produces long-term prosperity. During his tenure:

• State spending has declined for four consecutive years while Florida has continued to invest in its highest priorities.
• Florida has maxed out its Rainy-Day fund to its constitutional limit of $5.0 billion, up from its initial balance of $1.5 billion in 2019.
• Florida has maintained balanced budgets and earned AAA credit ratings from every major credit rating agency.
• Total state reserves have grown to nearly $18 billion, providing one of the strongest fiscal positions in the nation.
• More than 50 percent of all state debt accumulated since statehood has been repaid ahead of schedule, with Florida now on track to retire approximately 52%.
• State government has reduced more than 1,300 positions while Florida's population has grown by more than ten percent, maintaining the lowest number of state employees per capita among the nation's largest states.
• Floridians have received nearly $9.7 billion in tax relief, including the complete repeal of the commercial rent tax, saving businesses approximately $2.7 billion annually.

Governor DeSantis' commitment to investing in Florida's future while maintaining fiscal responsibility has transformed every major area of state government.

Since 2019, Florida has increased funding for the Florida Education Finance Program by more than $8 billion, bringing total K-12 funding to a record $30 billion while raising per-student funding to $9,338-the highest level in state history. The administration has also invested $7.1 billion toward teacher salary increases, expanded the nation's leading school choice programs, strengthened civics education, and maintained Florida's position as the nation's leader in higher education and education freedom.

Florida's economy has likewise reached historic heights under Governor DeSantis' leadership. The state's economy has grown to nearly $1.8 trillion, representing approximately 65 percent growth since 2019. Florida continues to lead the nation in new business formations, with more than 3.8 million new businesses created during the Governor's tenure, while strategic investments in workforce education, transportation infrastructure, and economic development continue positioning Florida for long-term success.

The administration has also delivered unprecedented environmental achievements. Since taking office, Governor DeSantis has secured nearly $9.5 billion for Everglades restoration and water quality improvements-the largest environmental investment in Florida history. These investments have accelerated restoration projects years ahead of schedule, tripled South Florida's water storage capacity, improved water quality statewide, and reinforced Florida's position as the national leader in environmental conservation.

Public safety has remained a defining priority throughout the Governor's administration. Florida became the first state to recruit law enforcement officers through signing bonuses, attracting more than 10,000 officers, while investing heavily in school safety, fentanyl enforcement, emergency preparedness, and immigration enforcement initiatives that have made Florida a national model for protecting its communities.

The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget continues these priorities by maintaining historic investments in education, strengthening transportation infrastructure, supporting law enforcement and first responders, conserving Florida's natural resources, promoting workforce development, expanding healthcare innovation, and preserving healthy reserves to ensure Florida remains prepared for future challenges.

The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget represents the successful completion of eight years of conservative leadership that strengthened Florida's finances, expanded opportunity, protected taxpayers, and positioned the state for continued prosperity for generations to come.

To read the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget Highlights, click here.

To read the transmittal letter, click here.

To see a veto summary list, click here.

Tax Relief for Today and Tomorrow

Since taking office, Governor DeSantis has prioritized Florida's families and small businesses with both temporary and permanent tax relief. These tax cuts have saved Floridians nearly $9.7 billion under the Governor's tenure. This included the Governor's full repeal of the nation's only remaining tax on commercial rent, saving Florida's small businesses $2.7 billion annually.

Recognizing that many of Florida's legacy annual tax holidays are impactful for our families and businesses, Governor DeSantis approved a permanent Back-to-School tax holiday, ensuring our students have the tools to succeed. The Governor also made previous temporary holidays on disaster preparedness items permanent, ensuring our families have all year to prepare for hurricane season.

Governor DeSantis has worked to make family-focused expenditures part of the state's growing list of commodities permanently exempt from state sales taxes, reducing the burden on families. These include baby and toddler products, diapers, sunscreen, insect repellent, and even admissions to Florida State Parks. In addition to fully maintaining all state tax relief, the budget provides a second consecutive Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday, from September 1, 2026, through December 31, 2026, on the retail sale of firearms, ammunition and related accessories, crossbows and related accessories, camping supplies, and fishing supplies. After a successful launch in 2025, the holiday is expanded to include additional firearm accessories and doubles the price of eligible fishing bait and tackle eligible for savings. The holiday will save Florida's hunters, anglers, and campers $40 million in sales taxes next year.

The budget also builds on a prior tax holiday to assist Floridians in home hardening improvements to lower insurance premiums and increase their defenses against severe weather. As enacted, the budget includes a sales tax refund of up to $500 per eligible residential property for sales tax paid on impact-resistant windows and doors purchased from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2029.

Throughout his second term, Governor DeSantis has led the national effort to safeguard taxpayers from environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and spending scams, and from the injection of unconstitutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Both ESG and DEI practices prioritize ideological agendas over common-sense pecuniary principles and staunch fiscally conservative investments.

Investing in Florida's K-12 Students

Florida is the education state-ranking #1 in a variety of different educational categories, including education freedom. Florida has prioritized providing our students with a high-quality education that fits their individual needs. The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget builds on Florida's record investments in education, providing a historic $30 billion in funding for the K-12 public school system. This will include the highest per student investment ever, providing $9,338 per student, an increase of $150 over last year. This investment will also cover the costs of nearly 500,000 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:

• $1.56 billion to provide salary increases for teachers and other instructional personnel, an increase of $200 million over FY 2025-2026.
• $1.65 billion for early childhood education, including $431 million for Voluntary Prekindergarten.
• $290 million for the Safe Schools Allocation.
• $15.4 million to support civics engagement programs, including $7 million for the Florida Civics Seal of Excellence Program.

Florida Leads the Nation for Higher Education

Florida has ranked #1 for Higher Education for a decade, while also holding the line on tuition to provide a quality education at an affordable price. The Fiscal Year 2026-2027 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 Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget recommends:

• $1.8 billion for the Florida College System
• $3.9 billion for the State University System
• $158.6 million for Florida's four Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

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 has reached that goal well ahead of schedule, investing more than $12 billion in workforce education since 2019. The FY 2026-27 Budget continues this progress by investing $732 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:

• $130 million for nursing education programs to help address nursing vacancies.
• $473.5 million in operational funding for Florida's Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs.
• $20 million for the Governor's Pathways to Career Opportunities Grant Program to support pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs for high school and college students.

Bolstering Florida's Record Economic Growth

Florida is the fastest growing state in the nation because, under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has championed freedom-first policies and made continued investments that create opportunities for Florida families to thrive. Florida has become the national leader for economic prosperity, with a nearly $1.8 trillion economy representing close to 65 percent growth during Governor DeSantis' administration, making Florida the 15th largest economy in the world. In 2025, U.S. News & World Report ranked Florida as the #1 economy in the nation for the third consecutive year. The Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget continues to make smart investments to support Florida's infrastructure, workforce, and economy to ensure we meet the demands of our growing state.

To support Florida's transportation network and infrastructure, the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget invests:

• $14.4 billion for the state transportation work program to construct and maintain Florida's transportation network.
• $4.9 billion for highway construction and maintenance to include 181 new lane miles, and $1.4 billion to resurface 2,622 lane miles.
• $155.5 million in seaport infrastructure improvements to ensure Florida's ports continue to have capacity while the rest of the nation struggles from supply chain backups at seaports, and $374.7 million for aviation improvements.

To help create new jobs and support business development throughout the state, the FY 2026-27 Budget invests:

• $40 million for the Job Growth Grant Fund to support local infrastructure and workforce training projects.
• $80 million to continue marketing efforts through VISIT FLORIDA.

Florida's rural communities are an important part of the success of our state, and the FY 2026-27 Budget continues to provide our rural communities with the resources they need to thrive. This includes:

• $27 million for the Rural Infrastructure Fund to support local infrastructure projects that help attract jobs.
• $81.8 million for the Small County Outreach Program to assist small county governments in repairing infrastructure.

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 FY 2026-27 Budget includes:

• $165.7 million for the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) program.
• $70.8 million for the State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL) program.
• $50 million for the Hometown Heroes Housing program to provide down payment and closing cost assistance for hard-working Floridian heroes, including law enforcement officers, firefighters, educators, healthcare professionals, childcare employees, and active military or veterans.

Backing Florida's Law Enforcement and 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 are on the front lines of combatting illegal immigration into our state. To support Florida's law enforcement and military communities, the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes:

• A continued, steadfast commitment to Florida's law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day for Floridians by including $19.8 million in pay increases for sworn state law enforcement officers.
• $20 million for the sixth year of the Law Enforcement Recruitment Bonus Program, which provides a signing bonus of up to $5,000 for those hired as first-time law enforcement officers in Florida.
• A $2.5 million pay increase for state firefighters.
• $52 million to support National Guard facilities and guardsmen seeking higher education degrees.
• $15 million to continue the State Assistance for Fentanyl Eradication (S.A.F.E.) Program to continue to assist local governments in their fight against drugs.
• $1.5 million for the Defense Reinvestment Grant Program, which provides funding for infrastructure projects that make a positive impact on the military value of installations within the state.
• $6 million for the Florida Defense Support Commission, which supports the Florida defense industry by awarding grants and guiding the future of military installation operations in the state.

Protecting 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 Fiscal Year 2026-2027 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 Budget includes $1.2 billion for Everglades restoration and water quality, bringing the total investment during the Governor's second term to almost $6 billion, and bringing the investment during the Governor's tenure to nearly $9.5 billion.

This includes continued investments in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), the landmark dollar-for-dollar commitment between the state and the Federal government to restore America's Everglades. This summer, during the 25th Anniversary year of CERP, we reached a historic agreement with the Trump Administration to accelerate CERP, including critical components of the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP) and EAA Reservoir. Of the $665 million dedicated to Everglades restoration, the budget allocates $475 million for CERP.

Within that amount $450 million of those funds directly supports CEPP, fully funding all remaining components of state-funded portions of the EAA Reservoir and CEPP South-Blue Shanty Flow-way. This investment ensures that the landmark of Everglades restoration is achieved and delivered five years ahead of schedule.

In addition, the budget provides $50 million for specific project components designed to achieve the greatest reductions in harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Estuaries and $79 million for the Northern Everglades and Estuaries Protection Program.

To continue protecting Florida's water quality and supply, the Budget includes $396 million for targeted water quality improvements to achieve significant, meaningful, and measurable nutrient reductions in key waterbodies. This includes:

• $301 million for local water projects to construct, upgrade, or expand wastewater facilities, including septic to sewer conversions, stormwater management projects, and agricultural nutrient reduction projects.
• $45 million is provided for the priority areas of the Indian River Lagoon and Biscayne Bay.
• $20 million to accelerate projects to meet scientific nutrient reduction goals, called Total Maximum Daily Loads.
• $30 million for water quality improvement projects through the Water Management Districts.

Additional water quality investments include $50 million to restore Florida's world-renowned springs and for land acquisition to protect springsheds as well as $23 million to improve water quality and combat the impacts of harmful algal blooms, including blue-green algae and red tide. The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes $50 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 Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget invests $63 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 $150 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 $150 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 Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes $64 million in beach nourishment funding to bolster our shorelines.

The FY 2026-27 Budget also prioritizes the protection of Florida's working agricultural lands and family farms, providing an appropriation of $425 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 $175 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 Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget also includes $15 million to restore Florida's Oyster reefs, including $11 million 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 $104 million in Florida's efforts to effectively combat wildfires including equipment, and wildfire suppression activities, such as prescribed burning.

The FY 2026-27 Budget also includes $193 million for the cleanup of contaminated sites with a focus on promoting redevelopment of these areas once cleanup has been completed.

Promoting 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 Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget recommends:

• More than $73 million for behavioral health services, including support for forensic bed capacity and operations of the state mental health treatment facilities.
• More than $164.6 million from the nationwide Opioid Settlement Agreement to continue support for the Office of Opioid Recovery. Florida is using opioid settlement funds to expand life-saving treatment, prevention, and recovery services statewide, helping communities fight addiction, support families, and reduce opioid-related deaths.
• $166 million to sustain and expand opioid recovery across the state.

To support important cancer research, the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes:

• $127.5 million for the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program, which supports cancer research, clinical trials, and efforts to improve patient cancer care through Florida's National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated cancer centers.
• $70 million for the Florida Cancer Innovation Fund, including a $10 million increase, to help researchers develop and advance new cancer treatments and technologies.
• $30 million to support the Cancer Connect Collaborative Research Incubator, which is initially focused on accelerating research and improving outcomes for children with cancer.

The budget adds $2 million to expand testing for contaminants like heavy metals, bacteria, pesticides, and microplastics, ensuring safer food and household items for Floridians. This investment reduces health risks, promotes transparency, builds consumer confidence, and supports Florida's Make America Healthy Again Agenda.

To support Florida's mothers, their children, and the children in the child welfare system, the budget includes an increase of more than $90.3 million to strengthen these efforts. This includes $28.3 million for Community-Based Care lead agencies' risk pool to address unexpected child welfare needs and support independent peer reviews that promote accountability and continuous improvement, $24.9 million to maintain adoption subsidies for families who adopt children from Florida's child welfare system, $11.1 million to increase foster care room and board rates for licensed foster families, and $10.1 million to expand extended foster care services for young adults transitioning to independence. Additionally, $1 million will expand statewide digital recruitment for foster parents and Guardian ad Litem volunteers, further strengthening stability and community connections for children.

To support Florida's seniors, the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes:

• An increase of $3 million, for a total of $73.1 million to serve additional seniors as part of the Alzheimer's Disease Initiative.
• An additional $7.5 million, for a total of $131 million to increase services through the Community Care for the Elderly Program and the Home Care for the Elderly Program. Funding will provide additional support for seniors at risk for out of home placement.

To support Floridians with unique abilities, the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget includes an increase of over $10 million in funding to allow additional individuals with disabilities to be provided with necessary services through the Home and Community Based Services Waiver.

The Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget invests an additional $4.2 million to support capital improvements for the state-run veterans' nursing homes.