Senate panel hears governor's $117.4 billion "Floridians' First" budget; TED silo highlighted

Brian Mims, policy coordinator for the governor's Office of Policy and Budget, told the Senate Appropriations Committee the governor's proposed state budget totals $117,400,000,000. "Health and Human Services continues to be the largest portion of the overall budget with $48,600,000,000," Mims said, and education is the second largest at $32,500,000,000. He said the governor's TED (Transportation, Economic Development) silo totals about $18,300,000,000.

Secretary Alex Kelly of the Department of Commerce walked committee members through Commerce priorities within that TED total, calling for full expenditure of Sadowski housing funds and an additional $50 million for the "Hometown Heroes" first-time homebuyer program. "This represents a full expenditure of the Sadowski funds, and also $50,000,000 for the hometown heroes program," Kelly said, adding the proposal could fund roughly 6,700 new first-time homebuyers.

Kelly described a recurring $50 million appropriation for the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund, continued support for the Disaster Recovery Community Development Block Grant (Rebuild Florida) and requested $14 million to $18 million increases for information systems tied to workforce and benefits access. He told the committee the Florida Winds system — a single sign-on for agency services — will be fully operational October 1 and requested operations and licensing funds to keep it running.

Brian Griffin, of VISIT Florida, responded to questions about the private match that accompanies state tourism dollars. "Not only did we meet that match, but we exceeded it," Griffin said, noting the match often includes promotional and in-kind participation from local partners.

Executive Director Dave Kerner of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles concentrated on law enforcement priorities. Kerner called for a comprehensive pay plan for Florida Highway Patrol troopers to curb attrition and sought additional funds to replace high-mileage pursuit vehicles. "We have a much higher average mileage on our pursuit vehicles than we should," Kerner said, and requested an additional $5 million above the recurring base for vehicle replacement and maintenance.

Major General John Haas described the Florida National Guard's M A2627 request, including $28 million to advance Camp Landing readiness center design (leveraging a $20 million federal construction award), $40 million to complete an operational readiness training complex at Camp Landing and targeted recruiting and retention investments. "These requests represent a strategic investment in Florida," Haas said, tying readiness funding to disaster response and economic impacts.

Director Mark Feene of the Florida State Guard asked for restored operating funds to resume recruiting, IT investments and aviation maintenance capacity to reduce reliance on contracting. Kevin Guthrie of the Division of Emergency Management sought flood-mitigation and emergency alert funding and emphasized WebEOC and enterprise grant-management upgrades.

Across departments, agency leaders highlighted a mix of recurring and nonrecurring requests, proposed position reductions tied to vacant roles, and projects that aim to leverage federal matches. Several presenters emphasized that some line items (for example, certain defense or disaster-recovery funds) would be prioritized for specific national-security or mitigation purposes.

The committee did not take final appropriations votes on the budget during the hearing; the session provided the sponsor and staff-level presentations that will inform appropriation decisions in the coming weeks.