The 2026 Legislative Session, and its attendant special sessions, are finally over. For the second year in row, the Legislature could not complete its work in 60 days. After the regular session and three special sessions, Floridians now have a new state budget, tax relief package, and congressional maps. Not to mention all the new and amended laws contained in the 251 bills passed by the Legislature in the regular and special sessions. The Governor has not signed all of them and has yet to veto any, but likely will.

And last, but certainly not least, in November, Florida voters will make the final decision on what would be by far the largest change to the fiscal structure of Florida government in our state’s history. In Special Session F, the Legislature amended and passed Governor DeSantis’s property tax relief proposal, estimated to reduce taxes and local government revenue by $46 billion over five years. The voters will have almost five months to consider this proposed amendment. This is much longer review period than the Legislature had before it passed the proposal less than a week after it surfaced for the first time. For all the details of the property amendment, read this.

Familiar tensions arose during the session, and it was not long before it looked like it was going to be another prolonged one. This not only impacted the budget, but it also doomed a lot of legislation. Priority bills passed early in one chamber languished in the other and eventually were not considered. Ultimately, many priorities of the Governor, the Senate, and the House failed to pass. These include property tax relief, an artificial intelligence bill of rights, expanding the ability of parents to opt out of vaccines for school children, rural development, school choice scholarship reform, Medicaid oversight, and other health and education issues.

As for the budget, House Speaker Daniel Perez said there was a “fundamental disagreement on what the state budget should look like”. He summed it up by saying the House wants to spend less and the Senate wants to spend more, and he was not going to be very flexible on that. This proved true, as the original plan was to return to Tallahassee in mid-April to finish the budget, but the conference committee process did not start until a month later.

The end result was $114.5 billion spending plan, which while being touted as a budget cut, actually spends $2 billion more in General Revenue than in the current year.

Special Session E also produced an agreement on state tax relief. Depending on how you count it, the 2026 tax package will save taxpayers approximately $290 million. Most of it nonrecurring and much of it local. The largest cuts are a four-month sales tax holiday for hunting, fishing, and camping supplies, a property tax assessment cap for mobile homes, and a three-year sales tax exemption for home hardening products (impact resistant windows and doors).  For all the details of the new tax package, read this.