Concerned about looming deficits, Florida lawmakers are poised to approve a nearly $114.5 billion state budget for FY 2026-27 that includes some, but not all, court spending priorities.

An agreement House and Senate leaders reached over the Memorial Day weekend essentially splits the $1.4 billion difference between a Senate proposal to mostly maintain current spending, and the House’s $113.6 billion austerity plan.

A vote is scheduled for Friday. After that, Gov. Ron DeSantis will be free to exercise his line-item veto authority.

The compromise includes $514 for Everglades restoration that DeSantis requested, $425 million for the Senate’s Rural and Family Lands program, and $75 million to restore cuts to an AIDS medication assistance program — but no across-the-board pay raises for rank-and-file state workers.

When it comes to the court system’s less than 1% of the state budget, lawmakers agreed to fund, or partially fund, several high-priority items.

The budget would dedicate $13 million for architectural and engineering services, construction management, and site preparation for a new Sixth District Court of Appeal courthouse.

DeSantis vetoed a $50 million appropriation for the project after the Sixth DCA opened January 1, 2023. The court has been operating out of leased facilities, but the Legislature appropriated money to acquire a Lakeland site and the project is ongoing.

The budget agreement also includes nearly $1 million — $937,000 — to hire deputy Supreme Court marshals to coordinate judicial security statewide with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The money would also be used to hire part-time deputy marshals for the Sixth DCA, where court administrators say the lack of a permanent court facility poses additional security challenges.

The enhancements were recommended by a Supreme Court workgroup on judicial security that Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz created in a March 24, 2025, order. The order directs the workgroup to review a rise in threats against judges, and to recommend a response. Chaired by Fourth District Court of Appeal Chief Judge Lance Day, the 10-person panel includes judges, court administrators, and marshals. The order set a Friday (May 29) deadline for a final report and recommendations.

The budget agreement also dedicates $1.6 million to give chief judges more flexibility to configure “judicial suite” staffing in the district courts of appeal.

In the trial courts, the budget agreement includes $2.7 million and four FTEs, or full-time equivalent positions, to partially fund a state court system proposal to begin a two-year project to modernize case management technology.

The courts requested $27.4 million and 47 FTEs, mostly IT technicians, to pay for the first year.

The budget agreement also includes another $273,000 for courthouse furnishings for the trial courts.

Lawmakers also agreed to spend another $1 million to fix faulty elevators in the historic Supreme Court building, where court personnel have occasionally been stranded.

Other court spending priorities are not included in the budget agreement.

It would not fund an approximately $12 million request for 25 new trial court judgeships — 13 circuit and 12 county judges — that the Supreme Court certified in a November 2025 order.

Justices noted that when a case-weighted formula was updated two years ago, it justified a need for 48 new trial judgeships. But considering the current fiscal climate, the Supreme Court said it would take an incremental approach to future requests.

In the latest order, justices expressed their appreciation for the 37 trial court judgeships (22 circuit and 15 county) that lawmakers authorized during the 2025 legislative session.

Also not included in the latest budget agreement is a $4.6 million request for nearly 50 new case managers to help trial judges monitor cases and meet new, stricter litigation deadlines.

The proposed budget would also not cover a $5 million request to bring 254 of the courts’ 3,600 positions into “SMS,” or the Senior Management Services retirement system.

“A number of our executive leadership and policy making positions are not accounted for in that current framework,” State Courts Administrator Eric Maclure told a legislative committee last year.