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Legislative Status Report
March 13, 2020
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The Daytona Regional Chamber works closely with our Volusia delegation and others to relay the local business viewpoint on matters that come before State government. In an effort to keep you, our members, informed of the Session in Tallahassee, we present our Legislative Status Report. If you have any questions regarding its content, please contact
Jim Cameron
at 386.566.2140.
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FY 2020-21 Budget Details
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House and Senate leaders say a deal on the state’s budget is in sight.
The goal was to finalize the budget today (Friday), setting up a 72-hour cooling off period extended to Wednesday (legislators will not work on the day of Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary).
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Budget items moved through conference committees last weekend, and unsettled issues were passed on to the House and Senate budget chairs.
Approximately
$350 million will be spent on PECO (public education capital outlay) projects but most of that will go for charter schools. However, teacher pay remains unresolved.
More information forthcoming next week.
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Click here
to see some of the local House/Senate budget allocations.
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Click
H 5001
for House version
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In regards to economic development line items, the
current budget
includes:
- Quick Response Training Grant - $9 million
- Florida Job Growth Grant Fund - $10 million
- Enterprise Florida Operating Budget - $16 million
- VISIT Florida - $50 million
- Economic Development Tools i.e. Qualified Target Industry (QTI), Brownfields - $25.725 million
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The Senate approved
S 362
by
Sen Hooper
to keep Visit Florida until 2028 and allocated $52.2 million in their budget. The House took up S 362 and amended it to carry the agency to October 1, 2023. The final bill keeps Visit Florida ongoing to 2023.
En route to the Governor.
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Affordable Housing
- the House agreed with the Senate’s position to fully fund affordable housing programs from the Sadowski Trust Fund! This means $225 million for State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) and $115 million for State Apartment Incentive Loan
(SAIL) and other Affordable Housing Programs.
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This is the first time in years that the Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust fund is likely to receive full funding.
The Daytona Regional Chamber thanks both the House and Senate for prioritizing this important measure.
We also plan to work with local agencies to draw funding to Volusia County.
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Community Development/Housing
H 1339
by
Rep Yarborough
– allows a county council to approve development of affordable housing on any parcel zoned for residential, commercial, or industrial use.
Requires local governments to allow accessory dwelling units in any area zoned for single family residential use.
It also requires that impact fee data be submitted to the Dept of Financial Services plus an evaluation of additional local government contribution criteria within applications submitted for State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL) Program funding.
En route to the Governor.
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The Chamber was vigilant in its opposition to this legislation which would have eclipsed city/county regulation of Vacation Rental units
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It will be back next Session.
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H 7097
by
Finance & Tax Committee
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In order for House and Senate budget leaders to balance the budget, their respective tax package will undoubtedly be leaner than what what’s on the table now.
The Senate went along with H 7097 including millions of dollars in cuts to the state’s communications services tax and corporate taxes plus
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a sales-tax break for companies renting office space, and another cut for some specialty insurance lines.
The Senate added new breaks for affordable housing builders,and sale of mobile homes. The Senate also made changes to keep tourist development taxes used for tourism marketing.
Lawmakers have talked of paring back programs to supplement the roughly $3.5 billion in reserves built into the spending plan now being worked on.
Currently, the budget will likely include $100 million for the Florida Forever land-buying program, a teacher pay package that currently hovers at $600 million.
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Constitutional Amendments
S
1794
by
Sen Travis Hutson
requires petition groups to pay the full cost for supervisors of election to verify the accuracy of signatures collected.
Currently they pay $.10 per signature. That cost would vary from county to county but
could
be more than a dollar per signature.
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Also it says the validity of signatures would have an expiration date and would require more than twice as many signatures before the Supreme Court would review the measure.
En route to the Governor.
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Clean Waterways Act
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S 712
by
Sen Mayfield
– the Senate's main environmental measure.....would en
act blue-green algae task force recommendations and give the Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) more authority to reduce pollutants in waterways. M
ajor topics include wastewater, stormwater, agriculture, biosolids, and septic systems.
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As for septic systems, it transfers their regulation from the Dept of Health (DOH) to the Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) which will adopt pertinent rules by July, 2022. This means more
inspections and spending more on septic to sewer conversions. It
creates a wastewater matching grant program where the state adds to local government investments in upgrading septic/sewer systems.
It also increases the amount of administrative fines that DEP can assess from $10,000 to $50,000 per infraction.
En route to the Governor. The Chamber supports addressing blue-green algae and increased regulation of septic systems.
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State Office of Resiliency
S 7016
by
Infrastructure and Security
sets up the office under the Governor; creates the Statewide Sea-Level Rise Task Force; authorizes the Dept of Environmental Protection to contract for services, upon request of the task force; requires the Environmental Regulation Commission to act on the task force’s recommendations.
To be addressed in the budget.
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Public Financing of Construction Projects
S 178
by
Sen Rodriguez
mandates sea level analysis before any state finance construction projects break ground in coastal areas. Florida
has about 1,350 miles of coastline and much of the state has a low elevation.
En route to the Governor.
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Environmental Enforcement
H 1091
by
Rep Fine
stipulates that
environmental laws
v
iolations can result in damages and administrative, civil, and criminal penalties. Damages should compensate the state for the value of the loss to natural resources caused by the violation and can cover the cost of remediating the damage done to the environment. In addition, violators can be liable for
penalties
that are designed to punish the wrongdoer rather than to address the harm caused by the violation.
En route to the Governor.
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Growth Management -
S 410
by Community Affairs Committee
makes various changes to Florida’s growth management law including –
- prohibits counties from adopting, after January 2020, a comp plan/land development regulation unless certain conditions are met;
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- requires the Dept of Economic Opportunity to give a preference to certain counties/municipalities when selecting applications for funding for specified technical assistance;
- requires local governments to include a property rights element in their comprehensive plans;
- stipulates that a county may not restrict a municipality’s land uses, density, and intensity decisions allowed on lands annexed into a municipality as long as the municipality’s comprehensive plan complies with the Community Planning Act.
Passed the House 71-43
(Reps Elizabeth Fetterhoff, Tom Leek, Paul Renner, David Santiago voted YES).
Passed the Senate 23-16
(Sens Travis Hutson, David Simmons, Tom Wright voted YES).
En route to the Governor.
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removing the requirement that the Governor and Cabinet must approve Space Florida’s bond proposals.
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It also specifies that revenue bonds issued by Space Florida may not constitute an indebtedness of the agency and may not be secured by state appropriations, reduces the maximum length to maturity for bonds, and allows Space Florida to validate its bonds.
En route to the Governor.
This could benefit businesses that are involved in activities financed by the agency.
Space Florida CEO Frank DiBello stated, “this was a much needed item for our toolkit”.
The Chamber supports the work of Space Florida.
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Direct Care Workers H 607 by Rep Pigman
would allow q
ualified nurse practitioners to operate primary care practices independently without an attending doctor.
Advanced nurse practitioners with at least 3,000 hours of experience under the supervision of a physician could qualify to provide services including family medicine, general pediatrics and general internal medicine.
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Nurse practitioners would have to complete minimum graduate level course work in differential diagnosis and pharmacology.
Approved by the Governor.
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Impact Fees
S 1066
by
Sen Gruters
some of the provisions are.....
- imposes new requirements related to impact fees:
·
requires impact fee calculations be based on the most recent 36 months and exclude any costs not meeting definitions for infrastructure/public facility.
·
maximizes cost per student station calculated for capital outlay projects;
House Amendment 1 removes the provision in the bill that would allow certain local governments to impose both a contribution requirement related to public education facilities and an education-related impact fee without any offsetting credit
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The Revenue Estimating Conference verified that has an indeterminate impact on local government impact fee revenues
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Approved in the Senate
(Sens Travis Hutson, David Simmons, Tom Wright voted YES)....sent to and amended by the House (Reps Elizabeth Fetterhoff, Tom Leek, Paul Renner, David Santiago voted YES).
Still being addressed.
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K-12 Scholarship Programs
H 7067
by
Rep Sullivan
– revises initial scholarship eligibility criteria for the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program. It also stipulates that priority be given to students from low income households or who are in foster care or out-of-home; requires a
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scholarship-funding organization to refer students who did not receive a scholarship because of lack of funds to another scholarship-funding organization.
The bill revises the Florida Tax Credit Program (FTC), and Florida’s statewide, standardized assessments.
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Still being addressed.
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District Cost Differential -
details on a final budget are still being addressed. As of now, the House proposal to increase the District Cost Differential (DCD) means that the Volusia School District would receive additional funds. However, the House also proposed to allow compression funding to expire….thus the Volusia District would see a NET LOSS of dollars. The Senate has not considered any such changes.
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More information should be available when a final budget is adopted next week. Thank you School District lobbyist Sam Waggoner.
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Insurance Administration
S 1606
by
Sen Perry
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is a comprehensive bill that addresses numerous areas pertaining to insurance including
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electronic signatures for a salvage certificate of title; civil remedy notices’ statute of limitations; condominium unit’s property loss assessment coverage; allows insurers to cancel auto policies for non-payment after 30 days, vs current 60 days; allows for an electronic method of workers compensation payments to be used.
Rep David Santiago’s H 359 and H 89
5 was a similar House version to this bill.
En route to the Governor.
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Verification of Employment Eligibility -
S 664 by Sen Lee
was to require businesses to use the federal E-Verify system to check the citizenship status and employment eligibility of new
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hires. Currently,
only eight states require E-Verify for all businesses.
A scaled-back version was approved by the Senate.
The Senate decided to join the House’s more lenient approach giving businesses the option of using E-Verify or just having federal I-9 forms completed by new workers, basically a standard U.S. labor requirement that’s been in place for more than 30 years.
However, the measure will require all public employers — state agencies, school districts, cities and counties — and their contractors to use E-Verify.
En route to the Governor.
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H 7071
by
Rep Beltran
(Identical
S 914
) limits the use of Contingency Risk Multipliers in determining the amount of attorney fees awarded for claims arising under property insurance policies. It maintains a formula based on number of hours and rate per hour for attorneys. Contingency Risk Multipliers can only be used in exceptional cases.
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Damages – H 9 by Rep Tom Leek
requires certain medical expenses in personal injury claims to be based on certain usual/customary amounts received.
H 9 died on the House calendar (similar Senate versions were also left on the calendar).
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Drug Free Workplace -
S 1186
/ H 1297
- require that pre-screening/drug-screening tests meet specified standards and forbids sending urine specimens for out of state testing unless that testing facility meets Fla standards.
Both Senate and House versions died on committee calendars.
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The Chamber is following this legislation because it is critical to safety in the workplace. The Chamber also supports reasonable safety regulations in regards to use of medical marijuana.
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Chamber's 2020 Legislative Priorities
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Click
2020 Legislative Priorities
to see the Chamber's recommendations for the Session. This list was presented to the Volusia delegation at their November 20 meeting.
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Contact Your House and Senate Members
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Click here
to see Volusia's House/Senate contact information
as well as new committee assignment.
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Please note that the 2021 Legislative Session will be March 2 - May 7.
Volusia Days at the Capitol will be March 16-17. More information will be forthcoming.
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Price is $17 for Chamber members with advance registration, $22 day of event, and $35 for non-members.
Click here
for Xpress RSVP..no waiting.
Call Jim Cameron 566-2140 if you have any questions.
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Send in your 2020 Census Form!!
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An accurate census count is important to Volusia County for a number of reasons.....
- It helps determine the number of seats that Florida is allotted in Congress
- It determines the amount of federal funds that the county and cities will receive for the next 10 years,
- It spells out how legislative, county and city districts will be set for future elections.
Once you receive your form, return if as soon as possible....
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Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce
126 E. Orange Avenue, Daytona Beach, FL 32114
386.255.0981 | info@daytonachamber.com
DaytonaChamber.com
Your Chamber of Influence
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