budget

House and Senate education budget writers have released competing proposals for teacher salary increases, a top priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis that is expected to be a key issue during negotiations on the upcoming state budget.

House PreK-12 Appropriations Chairman Chris Latvala, R-Clearwater, said Wednesday the House wants to provide $650 million for teacher pay increases and no funding for bonus programs for teachers and principals.

Teacher pay and fiscal discipline. 

Those are two of the top priorities from leading Republicans as state lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis prepare to spend more than $90 billion in the next fiscal year beginning in July. Over $30 billion of that is collected from state taxes and fees.

  "This coming legislative session really needs to be the year of the teacher," DeSantis told reporters in the Capitol late last month.

Miami commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a $1 billion spending plan that includes new rent subsidies for low-income seniors, park improvements and surveillance cameras to combat illegal dumping.

Miami-Dade’s preliminary 2020 budget plans on longer library hours, beefed-up homework tutoring and a new beach debris crew to tackle a deluge of seaweed on the county’s coastlines.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez unveiled the proposed $8.9 billion spending plan Tuesday, touting a budget that keeps most property-tax rates flat but projects a wave of revenue shortfalls in the coming years. It will be the final full budget under Gimenez’s tenure as mayor, since the term-limited incumbent is set to leave office in November 2020.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing a boost in per-student spending, an overhaul in how the state rewards teachers, improvements to the state’s aging transportation network and more money to save the Everglades.

Conservationist Ron Bergeron and Sanibel City Councilman Chauncey Goss are Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first appointments to the South Florida Water Management District.

The appointments come after the governor called for resignations earlier this month from the district’s entire governing board.

Ron “Alligator” Bergeron is an eighth-generation Floridian. He is a South Florida developer and former member of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Miami's government might raise parking rates across the city for the first time since 2009, in some cases by as much as $1.50 per hour. The reason city administrators give for the hike is simple: The city needs more money.

The amount of increase would depend on the neighborhood. Some high-demand areas such as downtown, Brickell, and Wynwood would see greater hikes than Little River, Calle Ocho and Coral Way, widening the gap between rates in different parts of the city.