Florida House Speaker Danny Perez has given state representatives the next week off.
“At this point, you will not need to be in Tallahassee prior to Memorial Day,” he wrote in an email this afternoon. “I hope this gives you the clarity needed to plan accordingly. We will provide another update by the middle of next week as things continue to develop.” Read Extended Session Update 5-15
Local lawmaker Alex Andrade hopes the Senate and House will start the conference process. “I don’t think it benefits the state if we don’t go through a conference process. The conference process would involve people like me as the chair of the House healthcare budget negotiating the healthcare budget with my Senate counterpart, Jay Trumbull, before we present it to the full legislature for approval.”
The alternative is “bumping.” Andrade explained, “Essentially, we declare an impasse at the subcommittee level and the Speaker and the Senate President hash out the entire budget behind closed doors between themselves.”
He added, “I don’t think that that behooves or benefits the state, but we do need a budget by the end of June to keep the lights on and keep employees getting paid. So between now and the end of June, we will have a budget. I just don’t know if it’ll be a budget that’s been crafted in the Sunshine with full participation of everyone, or if it’ll be a budget that has to get hashed out behind closed doors.”
