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Florida Dedicate 40% of State Budget to Education Funding Initiative (2026)
| Florida Dedicate 40% of State Budget to Education Funding Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 3, 2026 | |
| Topic State and local government budgets, spending and finance and Education | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Florida Dedicate 40% of State Budget to Education Funding Initiative (Initiative #23-05) {Greener | start =11/3/2026 9:30pm MST | before = is|after = was}} not on the ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2026.
The ballot initiative would have required 40% of the state budget to be dedicated to funding education.[1]
Text of measure
Ballot title
The ballot title would have been as follows:[1]
| “ | Requiring a minimum of forty percent of Florida’s annual budget to be appropriated for education..[2] | ” |
Ballot summary
The ballot summary would have been as follows:[1]
| “ | Require Florida’s Governor and Legislature to appropriate an annual budget for education which totals a minimum of forty percent of the total spending appropriated in the State of Florida’s annual budget, including appropriations for early childhood education, K-12 schools, vocational institutions, colleges, and universities.[2] | ” |
Full text
The full text can be accessed here.
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Florida, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 8% of the votes cast in the preceding presidential election. Florida also has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures equaling at least 8% of the district-wide vote in the last presidential election be collected from at least half (14) of the state's 28 congressional districts. Signatures remain valid until February 1 of an even-numbered year.[3] Signatures must be verified by February 1 of the general election year the initiative aims to appear on the ballot.
Proposed measures are reviewed by the state attorney general and state supreme court after proponents collect 25% of the required signatures across the state in each of one-half of the state's congressional districts (222,898 signatures for 2024 ballot measures). After these preliminary signatures have been collected, the secretary of state must submit the proposal to the Florida Attorney General and the Financial Impact Estimating Conference (FIEC). The attorney general is required to petition the Florida Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on the measure's compliance with the single-subject rule, the appropriateness of the title and summary, and whether or not the measure "is facially invalid under the United States Constitution."[4]
The requirements to get an initiative certified for the 2026 ballot:
- Signatures: 880,062 valid signatures is required.
- Deadline: The deadline for signature verification is February 1, 2026. Officials have 30 days to check signatures.
In Florida, proponents of an initiative file signatures with local elections supervisors, who are responsible for verifying signatures. Supervisors are permitted to use random sampling if the process can estimate the number of valid signatures with 99.5% accuracy. Enough signatures are considered valid if the random sample estimates that at least 115% of the required number of signatures are valid.
Details about the initiative
- Team FL filed the ballot initiative, which was approved for signature gathering on March 17, 2023.[1]
- The initiative was withdrawn on January 19, 2025.
See also
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Florida Division of Elections, "Initiative #23-04," accessed March 25, 2023
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Before the passage of Florida Senate Bill 1794 of 2020, signatures remained valid for a period of two years
- ↑ Florida State Senate, "Florida Senate Bill 1794," accessed April 13, 2020
