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Legislative Status Report
Final Edition
UPDATED!
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Since 1987, the Daytona Regional Chamber worked 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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Sales Tax Referendum for Infrastructure....
By now, you should have received your MAIL-IN ballot for the proposed half-cent sales tax for infrastructure for Volusia County and its Cities. The
Chamber urges your support for the half-cent.
Click here
to see the Chamber's Position Statement.
NOTE - remember to check the ballot and
sign the envelope
. It must be in the Elections Supervisors office by May 21, 7 pm.
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Bills approved by the House and Senate go to the Governor. Once a bill reaches the Governor's desk he must sign or veto legislation within 15 days of transmittal, or it becomes law without his signature.
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House & Senate to Vote on Final Budget Saturday
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The Budget
S 2500
- budget leaders completed negotiations on Tuesday but legislators are required a 72-hour budget review before a final vote can take place.
The final version of the budget was not published by midnight Tuesday, meaning lawmakers must meet tomorrow (Saturday) to vote on a $91.1 billion budget that takes affect July 1.
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Environmental
programs total $682 million including money for Everglades restoration and programs to address algae blooms, plus $100 million for Florida springs, $149 million for water quality projects, $33 million for Florida Forever, the state’s conservation land-buying program, and $30.7 million to finance 65 water and sewer projects around the state.
Healthcare
programs totals $37.7 billion for including Medicaid and various hospital programs. Healthcare was House Speaker Jose Oliva’s top priority.
K-12 Education totals $21.8 billion…a $782.9 million increase (a 4% increase over FY 2018-19). That’s also $7,672 per student, a $242 increase for Florida’s 2.8 million students.
This amount includes $285 million to overhaul the “Best and Brightest” merit-based bonuses, $180 million for one safety officer per school and $75 million for mental health programs. It also includes $363.9 million in flexible funding…money that districts can use for teacher pay increases.
Economic Development
- while Gov Desantis sought $76 million for Visit Florida, legislators allocated $50 million; and $85 million for the Job Growth Fund….legislators allocated $40 million. The Governor was fine with both amounts allocated.
Tax Package
totals $96 million, including sales-tax holidays for back-to-school shopping and hurricane supplies. See article below.
Affordable housing
totals $82.9 million for low-interest loans to developers of affordable housing and build affordable homes for low-and middle-income families. However, approximately $115 million is being applied to the Panhandle areas affected by Hurricane Michael.
Gov DeSantis
wanted $338 million for the Sadowski Housing Trust which funds the
State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program
(SHIP) and
State Apartment Incentive Loan Program
(SAIL).
Budget reserves
stand at $3.4 billion.
Click here
to see some of the programs related to Volusia County.
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Visit Florida / Enterprise Florida
-
Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Bradley
and
House Appropriations Chairman Travis Cummings
agreed to continue funding Visit Florida until June 30, 2020.
Initially, the House only offered $19 million for
Visit Florida
(enough to cover expenses through October 1)
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and “sunset”
(not reauthorize) the agency. However,
House Speaker Jose Oliva
agreed to a request from
Gov Ron Desantis
to keep the agency open through next fiscal year, then determine whether to renew it afterwards.
While
Gov DeSantis
initially sought $76 million in his proposed budget for Visit Florida, he’s ok with $50 million for the agency.
Visit Florida President/CEO Dana Young
stated that Visit Florida will continue to provide a “great” return on investment with the funding available.
Again at the request of Gov Desantis, budget leaders also agreed to allocate $40 million for the Job Growth Grant Fund --- (it’s been $85 million the past two years) at least for another year.
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Taxes
H 7123
provides several tax reductions and tax-related modifications for families and businesses.
Sales tax:
- reduction in the tax rate for commercial property rentals from 5.7% to 5.35%,
- three-day “back-to-school” holiday for certain clothing, school supplies, and personal computers,
- seven-day “disaster preparedness” holiday for specified disaster preparedness items.
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K-12 Education
S 7070
has been sent to
Gov DeSantis
(he’s been supportive of school choice since before taking office). The focal point has been a “family empowerment scholarship” will pay private tuition for low to middle income families.
There was extensive debate in the House as to whether voucher programs drain funding from traditional public schools.
Bill sponsors stated that with ALL students participating statewide, it will include on .6% of 2.8 m students.
The new voucher program will
authorize up to $130 million a year – including public monies – to pay for private school tuition. While up to 18,000 students, from families with income of up to $77,250, would be eligible this fall to receive the voucher to attend a private school, s
tudents at 180% of poverty level ($46,000 for a family of 4) will be given priority.
The School Choice program also eliminates a waitlist for the existing for the tax credit scholarship.
It would also allow for extra funding to be used for ‘community schools,’ (operating in federally-designated “opportunity zones”) based on data where most/all students qualify for free/reduced lunch.
It would allow Charter School (Schools of Hope) to take over consistently low performing (public) schools.
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Workforce Education
H 7071
/
S 770
by
Sen
Travis Hutson
requires schools to focus on vocational and technical training and apprenticeships, including specified career classes for middle school students to urge them to consider workplace opportunities after graduation from high school i.e. high-skilled, well-paying jobs that are in high demand.
It also allows students use vocational and technical education as a pathway to meeting high school graduation requirements.
Hutson
also attached his
Financial Literacy
S 114
onto this bill.......
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(
Rep
Elizabeth Fetterhoff
carried the House version
H 73)
which would cover balancing a checking account, loan terms, budgeting, etc. It also makes financial literacy a half-credit elective course.
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Health Insurance Savings Programs
H 1113
by
Rep Paul Renner
would allow health insurers to create a
voluntary shared savings incentive program
to encourage insured individuals to shop for high quality, lower cost health care services.
It was approved yesterday by the Senate and by the House today.
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H 19
is en route to the Governor.
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CS/S 1528
by
Sen Bean
would allow Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (ACHA) to purchase/import prescription drugs from Canada with the intent to reduce costs for patients.
S 1528
was merged with House version
H 19
by
Rep Tom Leek
which passed last week.
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Healthcare Market Barriers
H 21
/
S 1712
eliminates the “certificate-of-need” requirement for new general hospitals and “tertiary services” beginning July 1. It would repeal a certificate-of-need requirement in 2021 for specialty hospitals, e.g. children’s hospitals.
Currently, hospitals had to have a certificates of need (CON) from the Agency for Health Care Administration (ACHA) to build facilities or to add services.
H 21
is en route to the Governor
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Electronic Prescribing
H 831
by
Rep Mariano
says beginning 2021, prescribers would be required to generate/transmit all prescriptions electronically. E-prescribing is where an authorized health care practitioner electronically transmits a prescription to a pharmacy using a secure software system.
H 831
is en route to the Governor.
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In November 2017, the red tide bloom distressed Florida’s coastline for 15 months by contaminating waterways, killing fish and other sea creatures and marring tourism for several beach communities
Red Tide Mitigation/Technology Development Initiative
S 1552
by
Sen Gruters
would be a first step to test and implement technologies to control/ mitigating the impacts of red tide.
S
1552
allocates $18 million over six years to research technologies aimed at combating red tide
.
The Florida Fish/Wildlife Research Institute will partner on the initiative. S 1552
now heads to Gov Ron DeSantis for approval.
The Chamber’s priority legislative list includes a
ddressing Red Tide.
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Tourism / Vacation Rental Units
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P
V
acation Rental Units
H 987
by
Rep Grant
would shift regulation of VRUs to the Dept of Business Regulation. It appears stalled as well as
Private Property Rights of Homeowners
S 824
by
Sen Diaz.
Died on the Calendar
The Chamber believes VRUs could be better regulated at the local level i.e. cites. VRU's should be required to pay taxes (sales and bed) and adhere to the same SAME standards as hotels.
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Assignment of Benefits
(AOB)
-
CS/H 7065
by
Rep Rommel
changes the means of attorney fees are paid regarding lawsuits between property insurance companies and contractors.
It stipulates that claimants would now be
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responsible for attorney’s fees if the settlements are less than 25% more of the original claim.
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Coastal Management H
325
by
Rep Lamarca
clarifies the criteria how the Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) will consider when ranking beach management projects for funding.
It requires DEP to implement a scoring system for annual project funding priorities including a four-tier
scoring system, assigns each tier a certain percentage of
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overall point value, and requires that the criteria be equally weighted within each tier.
Scoring categories include
Significance of the Project, Local Sponsor Financial and Administrative Commitment, Previous State Commitment, Availability of Federal Funds, Recreational
and
Economic Benefit
among others.
Senate version
S 446
by
Sen Mayfield
was merged into
H 325
.
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Federal Immigration Enforcement
S 168
by
Sen Gruters
and
H 527
by
Rep Byrd
would seek to ensure that state and local law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal government officials to enforce, and not obstruct, immigration laws.
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It also include includes a rule that local government employees/elected officials who permit sanctuary-city policies may be suspended or removed from office….plus fines of up to $5,000 per day that a sanctuary-city policy is in place and removal of state grant funding for entities with “sanctuary policies.”
In his inaugural address and State of the State speech,
Gov Ron DeSantis
has stated his support for banning “sanctuary cities”.
Currently, there are no municipalities in Florida that now have sanctuary policies.
It now goes to the Governor.
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Community Development/Housing
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Community Redevelopment Agencies
H 9
/
S 1054
would seek to increase accountability/transparency for CRAs by requiring CRA commissioners to undergo ethics training annually;
requiring each CRA to use the same procurement/purchasing processes as the creating municipality.......
H 9
is en route to the Governor.
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Compact with Seminole Tribe...No Deal
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A draft version of a gambling compact between the State and the Seminole Tribe that was the subject of numerous meetings this week will not happen.
House Speaker José Oliv
a said lawmakers simply ran out of time and that he is not in favor of calling a special session.
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The proposed gambling compact
would
have had the Tribe paying the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Much of the discussion centered on sports betting.
The budget that legislators will finalize tomorrow does not include revenue from the Seminole Tribe.
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On the Chamber's Radar Screen....
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Half-Cent Sales Tax Referendum for Infrastructure -
an AMENDED
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District Cost Differential -
while neither H 1031 or S 1284 were approved. THIS IS LANGUAGE IN S 2502 which implements the FY 2019-20 General Appropriations Act that calls for a "wage level index study" of the Office of Economic & Demographic Research to be completed by October 1.
Click here
to see specific language.
The Chamber asked Office of Economic & Demographic Research to keep the "all stakeholders including the Volusia School District of any details regarding the study. More details to come.
The Volusia School District is shortchanged almost $11 million each year because of this formula. The Chamber appreciate the attention that the Volusia delegation has given both bills.
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Chamber's 2019 Legislative Session Recap
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The Chamber's 36th Annual "Welcome Back Breakfast" for the Volusia Legislative delegation is set for Wednesday, May 22, 7:30 am at LPGA Clubhouse.
At this event, our own House and Senate members will express their viewpoint on the legislative session along with questions from the audience.
$15 for Chamber members with advance notice or $20 at the door. RSVP to
[email protected]
or call 523-3675.
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Chamber's 2019 Legislative Priorities
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Click
2019 Legislative Priorities
to see the Chamber's recommendations for the Session. Compiled by our Legislative Action Committee -
Phil Maroney, Chair (Root Company
).
These recommendations were tracked each week of the Session and reportd in the Chamber's Legislative Status Report.
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Click
Subject Index
- A list of all House and Senate bills, in alphabetical order by subject.
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Contact Your House and Senate Members
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Click her
e
to see Volusia's House/Senate contact information
as well as new committee assignment.
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The Chamber would like to thank
Charter-Spectrum
for sponsoring our Government Relations E-Newsletters.
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Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce
126 E. Orange Avenue, Daytona Beach, FL 32114
DaytonaChamber.com
Your Chamber of Influence
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