Ryan Nicol
A trend is emerging in Florida’s proposed budgets, as the House and Senate continue to negotiate: For many funding pots allocated to the executive branch, agencies will be required to report back on how they’re using the money effectively.
Add that to the list of ways lawmakers have looked to push back against the Governor’s Office this year, from rejecting a proposed immigration plan during a Special Session to House lawmakers vetoing moves by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the chambers offering competing financial relief plans.
For instance, the Senate would attach conditions to $6.8 million in nonrecurring funds allocated to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for an information technology modernization project.
“The department shall submit quarterly project status reports to the Executive Office of the Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the chair of the House Budget Committee no later than thirty days from the close of the previous quarter,” reads the latest Senate budget proviso.
“Each status report must include copies of each relevant task order(s), contract(s), purchase order(s), and invoice(s). The status report must also describe progress made to date for each project milestone, and deliverable, planned and actual completion dates, planned and actual costs incurred, and any current project issues and risks.”
Or take a proposal to send $2.85 million to the Department of Environmental Protection “for the implementation of a cloud-based electronic document management system.”
“The department shall submit an updated detailed operational work plan and a monthly spend plan that identifies all project work and costs budgeted for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 that directly align with the project work and costs specified in the current project schedule by Aug. 1, 2025, to the chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the chair of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, and the Executive Office of the Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget,” reads language from the House budget proviso.
The Senate language doesn’t contain the same reporting requirements.
However, there are dozens of stipulations in the chambers’ respective budget provisos, where one chamber or both institutes attach such requirements to the money allocated to executive branch agencies.
The requirements are particularly pronounced in the health care budget silo.
For one set of funding appropriations, House and Senate lawmakers are agreeing to require the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to “provide a quarterly reconciliation report of all Medicaid service appropriation expenditures and fund sources.”
“The reconciliation shall compare actual expenditures paid through each specific appropriation category by fund, either through the Florida Medicaid Management Information System (FMMIS) or the Agency for Health Care Administration, to expenditure estimates forecast through the Social Services Estimating Conference Medicaid services forecasting model,” the proviso states.
“The comparison shall include fund source detail for each comparison. For any category where a variance is identified, the agency shall submit a written corrective action plan to address each variance by category and fund source. The reconciliation shall be submitted to the Executive Office of the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives no later than 30 days after the close of each quarter. The agency may submit budget amendments to the Legislative Budget Commission to realign appropriation categories based on the reconciliation.”
Elsewhere, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities and AHCA must “provide a quarterly reconciliation report of all Home and Community Based Services waiver expenditures from the Agency for Health Care Administration’s claims management system with service utilization from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities Allocation, Budget, and Contract Control system.”
“The reconciliation report shall be submitted to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives no later than 30 days after the close of each calendar quarter,” the proviso adds.
The push comes as Senate President Ben Albritton has made statements in recent days emphasizing the need for such restrictions.
“New reporting requirements throughout the budget will safeguard taxpayer dollars and improve accountability, transparency, and oversight of government spending.”
Whether DeSantis will agree remains to be seen.
One comment
just sayin
June 4, 2025 at 7:34 am
More bureaucracy, more busywork to be done by a dwindling number of positions… some agencies already have to submit dozens of reports to the legislature, many of which are read by less than a handful of people.