Tuesday's Daily Pulse
| 3/9/2021
Cash Crunch: Lawmakers' challenge will be to balance the budget
Florida lawmakers returned to Tallahassee this month for a 60-day session that will focus in large part on the economic fallout from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Their biggest chore is filling a $2.75-billion budget gap driven largely by declines in sales tax dollars related to tourism and recreation. “The budget picture will be bleak, and funding will have to be more carefully prioritized around helping people recover and doing things that are most likely to re-stimulate the economy,” says Dean Cannon, a former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and president and CEO of GrayRobinson, one of the state’s largest law firms. [Source: Florida Trend]