The Session That Will Not End

By Allen Douglas, Executive Director, FES & ACEC Florida

The contentious 2025 Florida Legislative Session continues to be stuck in the mud as Legislative leaders wrangle over the budget. The House and Senate remain far apart in their proposals while Governor Ron DeSantis continues to press for his own plan.

While the session was scheduled to end on May 2, it was extended by both chambers until June 6. The House did convene briefly on May 13 to extend session until June 30, the absolute deadline for the legislature to meet its constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget, but the Senate has not returned to Tallahassee at the time this article was written.

The issue is the leaders' differing tax relief proposals. House Speaker Danny Perez has proposed a reduction in the state sales tax from 6 percent to 5.25 percent and had seemed to agree to 5.75 percent, but the Governor announced he would veto the budget bill if there was any reduction in the state sales tax.

The Governor wants a reduction in property taxes, arguing that would only benefit property owners in Florida, not visitors to the state. Senate President Ben Albri on is not in favor of either, proposing non-recurring tax relief, such as sales tax holidays that would need to be approved by the legislature each year going forward.

The issue for the engineering community, particularly those practicing in the transportation sector, is the House proposal to take $466.8 billion from the Transportation Trust Fund to help fund the reduction in sales tax. Additionally, the House proposes to reduce the Florida Department of Transportation workforce by 400 positions or roughly 10%. The Senate has countered with a reduction of 111 employees but does not favor any trust fund sweep.

Of great importance to the entire engineering community, Senate Bill 110, a bill amended in the House to abolish the Florida Engineers Management Corporation and the Florida Board of Professional Engineers, was added to the call for the extended session. However, Senate leaders have rejected the idea, and the House Speaker has announced that the issue is dead for this session.

Stay tuned. The Senate President has stated that he will hold workshops over the summer to discuss the deregulation issue and bring a proposal to the 2026 legislative session.

Weekly legislative reports containing other bills of interest to the engineering community can be found on the FES website at fleng. org/advocacy/legislative-updates/ or the ACEC Florida website at acecfl.org/advocacy/ legislative-updates/.