Governor preserves key court priorities in $117.6 billion budget

Gov. Ron DeSantis used his line-item veto power this week to trim $1.6 billion from a $117.6 billion state budget, but many court spending priorities remained intact.

Signed just ahead of the July 1 start of the fiscal year, the budget includes nearly $1 million — $937,740 — to enhance security for judges and court staff statewide.

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz thanked lawmakers and pledged to put the money to good use in a Judicial Luncheon address at the Bar Convention in Orlando two weeks ago.

“Obviously, one of the most foundational, elemental things that we can do in terms of helping to oversee the branch is making sure that we have done everything that we possibly can to protect the personal security of our judges and staff.”

The Workgroup on Judicial Security initiative involves hiring Supreme Court deputy marshals to track threats against judges and court staff statewide, and to coordinate the response with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The FY 2026-27 state budget also includes one of the single biggest-ticket items that lawmakers approved for the courts this year.

The one-time, $13 million appropriation would cover architectural and engineering work on a new Sixth District Court of Appeal facility in Lakeland that is expected to eventually cost nearly $67 million. Judges and Sixth DCA staff have been working from rented facilities since Florida’s newest appellate court opened January 1, 2023.

The budget also includes $1.6 million that the court system requested to give district court of appeal chief judges more flexibility to configure judicial suite staffing. A typical staffing model includes a judicial assistant and two staff attorneys.

In the trial courts, lawmakers agreed to partially fund a nearly $27.5 million court system request to enhance case management technology, funding that would have covered the first year of a two-year project that called for 48 FTEs, full-time equivalent positions, mostly IT professionals. The budget now includes $2.7 million and four FTEs.

The budget also includes another $1 million to partially cover the court system’s nearly $1.5 million request to hire a senior accountant and part-time staff, and to gain access to a cloud-based platform, all in support of the court system’s transition to “PALM,” a new statewide accounting system.

Lawmakers also approved, and Gov. DeSantis authorized another $1,040,000 to replace three elevators in the historic Supreme Court building in Tallahassee. Each of the elevators exceeded their operational lifespans, and some have occasionally stranded riders.

Anticipating revenue shortfalls in the coming years, lawmakers did not approve the court system’s $11.9 million request for 25 additional trial court judges — 13 circuit and 12 county — that the Supreme Court certified in a November 2025 order. The judgeships would have been in addition to 39 new judgeships that lawmakers and DeSantis approved last year.