State Legislature Week 5 Report

5 APR 13

Budgets are the biggest story of the week, with both the House and Senate offering their complete budget proposals to the last Committee before the floor. The revenue surplus for the first time in 6 years allowed members to be more generous in their allocations, especially in regards to education, and special projects (aka “turkeys”)reappeared for the first time in several years.  

Monday

Senate Criminal Justice Committee took up SB 454- Benacquisto relating to College police forces mutual aid, traffic enforcement, and jurisdictional authority. It passed unanimously without amendment or debate. This bill is now ready for the floor. The companion, HB 399 is also in the same posture.

The committee also heard SB 875-Galvano regarding open house parties, where owner of property has “actual knowledge” that minors are consuming alcohol, also passed unanimously. It has one more stop. Its House companion HB 5 –Pilon is ready for the floor.

House Govermental Operations Committee took up HB 637, the public record/public meeting exemption for college or University searches for President, Provost or Dean, and passed it unanimously without amendment or debate. It has one more stop. There is no Senate companion at this time.

Senate Education Committee passed SB 154- Detert which renames guidance counselors to “certified school counselors”. It has one more stop.

The House companion HB 801- Eagle also has one more stop.

Tuesday

House Session special order calendar featured several bills of interest. The so-called “Parent Trigger” bill (HB 867-Trujillo), requiring parental notification of failing or out-of-field teachers, as well as more say in turn around options for failing schools generated extensive debate. One amendment was adopted, and it is ready for final passage Thursday. Senate companion SB 862- Stargel has two more stops.

HB 585- Hood which in part revises criminal history background checks for government employees and registration of sexual offenders was not amended, and is ready for final passage on Thursday. Companion bill SB 1434 has one more stop.

HB 7091- the comprehensive K-20 bill relating to common core standards, diploma requirements, and industry certifications was temporarily postponed. There is no single Senate companion at present, so the delay may be the result of negotiations between Chambers to reach concensus on consolidation of issues.

Wednesday-

SB 1162- Bradley relating to the redundant language in mandatory child abuse reporting unanimously passed Senate Judiciary Committee without amendment or debate. It is now ready for the floor. The House companion, HB 757 has two more stops.

House Economic Affairs heard the texting while driving bill, HB 13- Holder, accepted an amendment to make it identical to Senator Detert’s SB 52, and passed it with one no vote. Both bills are now ready for the floor in their respective chambers.

Both full appropriations bills were heard in their respective budget committees Wednesday, and multiple amendments were offered on their way to presentation to their full Chambers.

While Governor Scott’s budget proposed a $3.85B increase for higher education funding, the House proposed budget includes $4.6B more, and the Senate $6.4B more.  The House wants a 6% tuition increase, the Senate holds tuition at current levels. Both Chambers use general Revenue funds for capital improvements to circumvent additional bonding for capital improvements.

Senate budget highlights relating to higher education include a 3% across the board raise increase for all state employees with an additional increase for state law enforcement; more than $500M to fully fund the state pension's unfunded liability; no tuition increase to students; repayment of the $300M “borrowed” from SUS reserves last year;  money for pre-eminence and performance pay; authorization for  Universities to increase their athletic fee up to $2 per credit hour to defray the costs of adding NCAA Division II  football; and provides $37,873,794 for mostly critical maintenance SUS PECO from GR.

Implementing and conforming  bills passed without debate or amendments.

House and Senate budgets now move to the full floor and are expected to be voted on next week. Since the House and Senate budgets are not identical, following passage by both chambers, they will move into conference to reconcile those differences. If the current legislative schedule holds, the final budget proposal should be completed and made available no later than April 30^th with the final vote being on May 3^rd.

Thursday

House Session

Final passage of HB 585- Hood pertaining to background checks passed on a vote of 119-0, but the Senate language is not the same (SB1114-Altman), and it still has three more committee stops.

HB 867- Trujillo the “Parent Trigger” bill had ninety minutes of structured debate, empassioned on both sides, but passed  68-61. The Senate companion (SB 862-Stargel) has two more committee stops.

Senate Session

On Thursday, the full Senate began the process of hearing budget bills.  Two of the conforming bills for education, one dealing mostly with K-12 (SB 1076) and the other focusing on higher education (SB 1720) had their second reading (Special Order), which is the stage at which questions are asked of the sponsor and  amendments can be offered and adopted if approved by the majority of Senators. The next step is final passage of the bill on third reading. The final passage votes are expected to occur next week. As a reminder below is a quick summary of the provisions in SB 1720.

 ·        Requiring flexibility in the delivery of developmental education by Florida College System institutions to permit students to begin credit courses immediately while they simultaneously develop the particular skills they need to successfully perform college work;

·        Allowing Florida colleges to waive all or a portion of tuition and fees in order to provide a bachelor’s degree program to Florida residents for $10,000;

·        Establishing the academic and research excellence standards for the Preeminent State Research Universities Program;

·        Requiring the state university that attains the highest level of excellence on the preeminence standards to create an institute for on-line learning; and

·        Establishing the Degree Completion Pilot Program as a permanent degree completion program called Complete Florida Degree Program.

·        Repeals the requirement that Bright Futures Scholarship recipients must file a Free Application for Student Financial Aid (FASFA) form, codifies the authority of the Board of Governors over state universities in regard to audit findings, and revises general education requirements.

·        Repeals authorization Florida College System Institutions to offer non-credit college preparatory (remedial) courses.

·        Replaces the Board of Governors as lessor with the University of South Florida Board of Trustees for the use of certain university lands and facilities by the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute(Moffitt).