The Florida House will spend much of this week getting down to the only business it is required to complete.

House leaders expect to pass a $71 billion budget out of the lower chamber by the end of the week, spending part of Wednesday and most of Thursday and Friday debating the massive spending plan. It's the only bill the Florida Constitution requires lawmakers to pass every year.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to take it up and pass it by the end of next week," said Towson Fraser, spokesman for House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City.

The biggest difference so far between competing spending plans proposed by the Senate and House has to do with education. The House plan would increase public-school spending by 8.45 percent over the current year and return $450 million to local governments that the state normally collects as "required local effort."

In his budget proposal earlier this year, Gov. Jeb Bush proposed returning $570 million.

Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, wants to increase public-school spending by $1.5 billion, a 10.5-percent increase.

"There's no reason we can't start looking at truly funding our public schools," Lee said.

The Senate proposal does not include a rollback of the required local effort.

But Fraser said the differences might not be as wide as they seem.

"The speaker's heels aren't dug in," Fraser said. "He doesn't see this as a huge stumbling block."