Florida TaxWatch has spent four decades keeping a close eye on the Florida budget, and we've poured everything we know into this Budget Hub.
Below you will find our most recent Budget Guide, a comprehensive list of links to state pages that will give you more information on nearly any topic you might be interested in, and more.
We hope that this page can serve as your go-to resource for understanding all of the ways in which Florida's state government spends your hard-earned tax dollars.
General Revenue (GR) collections for May (largely reflecting activity in April) beat the estimate made in March by $99.9 million. This is the 33rd month in a row collections have exceeded estimates, but this is a relatively small increase. It is important to note that this is the first time in a long time that the sales tax came in under estimate in May, even with a conservatively estimated $17.0 million contributed from hurricane recovery and rebuilding efforts. This amount under estimate is for the sales tax is minimal (-0.6%), small enough to be considered “noise” by estimators, but it could be signaling the end of Florida’s spectacular run of revenue collections. While inflation of 4% is the lowest 12-month increase since March 2021, taxpayers continue to spend rather than save, with the savings rate at a “subpar” 4.6%.
Almost half of the total overage for May came from Earnings on Investments. Doc stamps and insurance premium taxes were the next best performers (in dollars).