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State Budget Deal Sealed In Secret; Session Will Extend To Monday

SCOTT KEELER / TAMPA BAY TIMES
House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, with Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart. ";

House Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron separately told their members Wednesday morning that they had reached a deal on a new $83 billion state budget.

“We have reached agreement with the Senate,” Corcoran told House members.

Neither Corcoran nor Negron, R-Stuart, have met publicly to discuss unresolved budget differences, many of which were in health care, higher education, K-12 public schools and environmental spending and policy.

Neither leader released any details of their agreement and no public budget discussions have taken place since Monday afternoon.

It’s the first time in memory that so much of the budget negotiations were conducted in private and it took place in a year in which Corcoran, a Republican lawyer from Land O’Lakes, promised unprecedented transparency in the House of Representatives.

Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald

The speaker did usher in new rules that removed the secrecy from individual lawmakers’ local projects, but on the 58th day of the 60-day session, it’s still largely a secret which projects got funded and which ones didn’t.

So many budget details were still unsettled Tuesday that the Legislature could not meet a midnight deadline to finish the session on time by Friday. State law requires a 72-hour cooling off period between the time the final budget is made public and when lawmakers can approve it.

Corcoran told House members that action on other legislation would end Friday, and they can return home for the weekend, but should expect to be back at the Capitol by 1 p.m. Monday to vote on the budget and related bills.

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