Every Florida governor in modern history spent their final budget handing out favors.
Ron DeSantis signed his and handed out nearly two billion dollars in vetoes instead.
Now he’s leaving behind something no governor in America can claim – and Washington, DC is going to pretend it never happened.
The Final Veto and What It Actually Means
Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach watched $95 million walk out the door.
Miami-Dade took the hardest hit – $55.3 million gone in a single stroke.
Broward lost $20.7 million. Palm Beach lost $19.4 million.
DeSantis didn’t apologize for a single line item.
“The things that we vetoed, a lot of those are just either inappropriate or maybe nice to have,” DeSantis said. “Nice to have is fine. I want to fund things that we have to have.”
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Most Florida Republicans talk about fiscal discipline.
DeSantis actually did it.
The Catholic Schools Question Nobody Wants to Answer
The loudest complaint coming out of South Florida involves the $15 million DeSantis cut for Catholic school security in Miami-Dade.
Thirty-seven thousand children. Sixty-eight schools across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe counties.
The Archdiocese of Miami called it “a distinct and critical need.”
DeSantis didn’t dispute the need.
He disputed who should pay for it.
“No one has done better for Catholic schools than we have because we have universal school choice,” he said. “What I don’t want is for the state to somehow have an entitlement that we’re going to have to fund all the time.”
That is a defensible position and a principled one.
Florida already funds Jewish day school security when those schools face specific threats.
The state runs a $290 million Safe Schools Allocation for public schools.
DeSantis isn’t anti-Catholic school – he’s anti-entitlement.
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The legislature passed the $15 million.
DeSantis vetoed it.
That’s how a governor with a backbone is supposed to operate.
The Archdiocese can disagree.
But disagreeing with DeSantis doesn’t make DeSantis wrong.
What the Critics Won’t Tell You
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado – a Republican – said she wasn’t surprised by any of the cuts.
She also said something that Miami-Dade Democrats will never admit publicly.
“We are the only port that does not have our system,” she said. “We currently barge oil in the most antiquated way.”
That’s not DeSantis failing South Florida.
That’s South Florida failing to manage its own infrastructure for decades.
Regalado also acknowledged that Port Miami’s leadership made the county a target.
“We knew, given everything that’s happened at the port, there was no way that anything that Port Miami asked for wasn’t going to get vetoed,” she said.
The county spent years airing its problems publicly, fighting internally, and sending Tallahassee lobbyists when they should have been sending solutions.
DeSantis responded the only way a fiscal conservative could.
He cut the checks.
The Record Nobody in Washington Can Match
While Democrats howl about South Florida’s $95 million in lost earmarks, here is what DeSantis actually built.
He tripled Florida’s Rainy Day Fund to its constitutional maximum of $5 billion.
Total state reserves reached nearly $18 billion.
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The state retired more than half its taxpayer-supported debt on his watch.
Florida now holds AAA credit ratings from every major agency – and state spending has declined four years running.
No other governor in America is running a shrinking budget right now.
Every dollar DeSantis banked is a dollar Florida has when FEMA shows up three weeks late, when Washington cuts the disaster relief check in half, when the federal government does what it always does – makes promises and sends paperwork.
Ask anyone who sat without power for two weeks after Helene whether they trust Washington, DC or Tallahassee with their money.
South Florida’s county commissioners know how to spend money.
DeSantis knows how to save it.
Washington could learn from what he built.
They won’t.
Sources:
- “Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Florida Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget,” Executive Office of the Governor, June 29, 2026.
- “Gov. DeSantis Vetoes $95M in Local Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Budget Items,” Florida Politics, June 29, 2026.
- “DeSantis Vetoes $15 Million for Archdiocese of Miami School Security,” Archdiocese of Miami, June 29, 2026.
- “Governor DeSantis Shrinks Size of Government, Vetoes School Security, Statewide Projects,” WCTV, June 29, 2026.
- “Gov. Ron DeSantis Signs $117.6B Florida Budget, Touts Restraint After $1.6B in Vetoes,” WPTV, June 29, 2026.
