TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After more than 100 days, Florida lawmakers Monday night approved a new state budget.

The upcoming budget weighs in at roughly $115.1 billion, lower than last year’s state budget of $118.6 billion.

It reduces state spending, while also pumping a record amount into the state’s reserves.

What’s perhaps more interesting is what is not included in the budget, as throughout the entirety of session, lawmakers couldn’t quite agree on direct consumer relief.

Lawmakers in the House wanted to reduce sales tax, but leaders in the Senate wanted to limit that sales tax reduction to clothes.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wanted to eliminate property tax.

However, none of those ideas made it into the budget. Instead, Floridians got a $1.3 billion tax cut, but nearly $900 million of that comes from a planned reduction on business rent.

Moving forward — Florida businesses will no longer pay taxes on commercial leases.

“It’s very easy to jump to the conclusion that you’re helping a Walmart, for example. No, what you’re helping is you’re helping small businesses,” Florida Speaker of the House Danny Perez said. “Small businesses create jobs. Small businesses grow and help their communities.”

“When Florida’s economy is doing well, Floridians do well,” Republican State Sen. Ben Albritton of Bartow said. “That was a very good maneuver to make sure to remove that competitive disadvantage that Florida had. No question about it.”

Floridians also got expanded tax holidays, with back to school being a month long, plus a new hunting and fishing holiday later this year.

That’s the finished product following a months-long debate over the state budget.

“This session started out with a lot of hope and a lot of talk about affordability and really trying to make Florida more affordable for Floridians,” Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said. “But in many ways, I feel like it’s ending with a whimper because it will forever be characterized by the Republican Party infighting.”

Lawmakers acknowledged they cut it closer than usual this year, as a decision is supposed to be made before the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. 

If a deal wasn’t done before then, the state could have faced a state government shutdown.

“We knew that we had to come here to get where we are today because come July 1st, nobody wanted a government shutdown, nobody wanted employees to be without a paycheck,” Republican State Sen. Ed Hooper of Palm Harbor said.

Items in the budget could still change once it reaches DeSantis’ desk, as he has line-item veto power.

It allows him to remove a number of items from the budget. 

For example, in last year’s fiscal budget, DeSantis removed almost a billion dollars using that line-item veto.