Florida lawmakers passed a bill on Friday backed by Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia that would impose new transparency requirements on county and municipal budgets, require quarterly online disclosure of employee compensation and create a public process for identifying potential spending reductions before final budgets are adopted.
House Bill 1329, titled the “Local Government Financial Transparency and Accountability Act,” would require counties and municipalities to post tentative budgets online at least five days before public hearings, up from two days under current law, and keep those tentative budgets online for at least 45 days. Final adopted budgets would have to be posted within 30 days and remain publicly available for at least five years. The bill is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
The measure also would require counties and cities to conduct a budget workshop at least 14 days before final adoption to identify strategies that could reduce the next fiscal year’s budget by 10 percent without affecting essential services such as law enforcement, fire protection or legal obligations. The results of that exercise, or a link to a recording of the workshop, would have to be posted online.
Under the bill, posted budgets would have to be downloadable and include more than line-item figures. Counties and municipalities would need to publish budget overviews with narrative explanations and graphical illustrations, along with summaries of revenues, expenditures, debt obligations, capital projects, staffing and reserves covering the proposed budget year, the current year and the previous four fiscal years.
“For far too long, local governments have benefited from ambiguity and inaccessibility in their spending habits,” said Ingoglia. “Not anymore. Now, local governments will be required to make budgets more accessible and identify areas in which spending can be reduced. The days of unchecked spending are over. Taxpayers deserve nothing less.”
The legislation further requires quarterly compensation summaries listing employee names, job titles and salaries for all workers funded through county or municipal appropriations. Those summaries also must be posted online in downloadable form. In addition, local governments would have to publish annual budget development calendars by Jan. 30 laying out expected deadlines for agency requests, workshops, hearings and the required budget-reduction exercise.
Beyond budget transparency, the bill also includes revisions to state law governing impact fees, transportation concurrency and local infrastructure financing. Those provisions would apply to impact fees adopted or increased after July 1, 2026, including new requirements for plan-based studies using recent localized data and stricter standards for increases above existing phase-in limits.
