Governor’s Agenda 2022 Recap: Florida

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivered his 2022 State of the State address in January, providing some insights into potential agenda items and areas of focus for the upcoming year. Now entering his fourth year in office, Governor DeSantis’s speech covered some familiar topics, but also shifted focus to new areas.

Since entering office in 2019, Governor DeSantis had primarily focused his addresses on economic development and regulation and education, which lines up with two of the more consistently common priority areas for many of the state’s governors. In previous years, Governor DeSantis regularly raised points in his addresses related to curriculum design, educational performance, and the education workforce. For items related to economic development, earlier addresses mentioned economic diversification, infrastructure development, and bringing jobs to the state.

Education was again an important topic in this year’s address. Governor DeSantis again touched on educational performance, by proposing to change the Florida Standards Assessment test, as well as K-12 curriculum by advocating for parent choice in educational content. Additionally, one common theme was around funding to improve or raise compensation for state employees, which did specifically call out pay for teachers and education professionals. In his speech, DeSantis proposed increases in teacher salaries and additional bonuses in 2022. This is a recurring theme, as DeSantis has included an item regarding teacher pay in every address since his first term.

Justice and Public Safety topics also were featured more heavily in the 2022 address, with several references to compensation and funding for law enforcement, but also around border control. As with teachers, compensation was a big topic in 2022, as he proposed raising law enforcement pay by 25% and providing $5,000 signing bonuses for new law enforcement personnel. His speech also proposed an additional $1,000 bonus for all law enforcement, firefighters, and EMTs. This is a bit of a shift, as Governor DeSantis hadn’t referenced this area as heavily since his first year in office.

Governor DeSantis signed the 2022-2023 budget in June, which includes large amounts of funding for several of the areas referenced in the 2022 State of the State address. According to a press release, the budget for this year includes $800 million for teacher pay increases and $125 million for bonuses for law enforcement personnel, in addition to investments supporting healthcare, economic development, and the environment.

Deltek also has some resources available regarding this year's State of the State addresses:

• Webinar: "‘State of the States’: Innovation, Equity, and Infrastructure"
• Data Set: "Governors' State of the States Agenda Items (2019-2022)"

 

The full text of Governor DeSantis’s 2022 State of the State address can be found here.