BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

SB 918 (DiCeglie) directs the Office of Supplier Diversity of the Department of Management Services to establish a Small Business Certification Program. The bill requires local governments to accept this small business certification regardless of any additional local certification process. (Taggart)

CS/CS/SB 264 (Collins) and HB 1355 (Borrero) prohibit governmental agencies from knowingly entering into a contract with an entity that would give access to an individual’s personal information if the entity is owned by a foreign country of concern or a foreign country of concern has a controlling interest in the entity. These provisions would also apply to entities that have their principal place of business in a foreign country of concern. Beginning January 1, 2024, the bills require governmental agencies to receive a signed affidavit under penalty of perjury attesting that they do not meet the criteria as described above. Foreign countries of concern include: the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro and the Syrian Arab Republic. The bills direct the Attorney General to enforce these provisions. The bills also prohibit governmental entities from providing economic incentives to foreign countries of concern. (Taggart)

CS/CS/SB 284 (Brodeur) and CS/HB 1025 (Caruso) revise the vehicle procurement requirements for the state purchasing plan. Specifically, the bills require vehicles of a given use class to be selected for procurement based on the lowest lifetime ownership costs rather than the greatest fuel efficiency. Before July 1, 2024, the Department of Management Services (DMS) shall make recommendations to all governmental agencies regarding the procurement of electric vehicles and best practices for integrating such vehicles into existing fleets. The bills direct DMS to rank vehicles based on the lowest cost of ownership over five years. Any vehicle purchased under the state’s purchasing plan must be ranked in the top five of the Department’s rankings. Law enforcement vehicles are exempt from this requirement. (Branch)

CS/HB 1123 (Gossett-Seidman) and SB 1646 (Davis) require commercial service airports to post certain information on their website and modify certain purchasing requirements. The airport must post online the airport’s master plan and any contract or contract amendments for the purchase of commodities or contractual services in excess of category five. The bills also increase the threshold that requires commercial service airports to use a competitive solicitation process from category three to category five. The bills increase the threshold that requires the airport’s governing body to approve a contract as a separate line item on a meeting agenda from category five to $4 million. CS/HB 1123 was amended to specify that contract approval must be placed as a separate line item on a meeting agenda for all contracts. The amendment also creates a scaled threshold for this requirement ranging from $750,000-$1.25 million depending on the airport size instead of $4 million as originally filed. (Taggart)

SB 830 (Hooper) clarifies that a public works project for the purposes of repair or maintenance also includes projects that utilize a consortium or cooperative purchasing agreement. (Taggart)

HB 239 (Bussatta Cabrera) and SB 224 (Hooper) – Special Risk Class Retirement Date

HB 291 (Holcomb) and SB 436 (Rodriguez) – 911 Public Safety Telecommunicators

HB 1121 (Bartleman) and SB 1156 (Burton) – Florida Retirement System 

SB 632 (Powell) and HB 687 (Daniels) – Veteran's Preference for Promotion

SB 576 (Book) and HB 663 (Cassel) – Employment Protections

SB 972 (Polsky) and HB 1065 (Nixon) – Protections for Public Employees Who Use Medical Marijuana as Qualified Patients

SB 1026 (Stewart) – Discrimination in Labor and Employment

HB 1109 (Barnaby) and SB 1310 (DiCeglie) – Expanding Public Sector Career Opportunities

HB 1445 (Black) and SB 256 (Ingoglia) – Employee Organizations Representing Public Employees

HB 1311 (Porras) and SB 1452 (Rodriguez) – Survivor Benefits

SB 7024 (Government Oversight and Accountability) – Retirement

HB 95 (Duggan) and CS/SB 618 (Yarborough) will amend the "law enforcement officer bill of rights" to prohibit a law enforcement officer or correctional officer from being discharged, suspended, demoted or otherwise disciplined solely as a result of that officer being included on the Brady identification system. The Brady identification system is a database that contains information about police misconduct, public complaints, use-of-force reports, etc. (Cruz)

HB 927 (Alvarez) and SB 1086 (Gruters) require an agency to provide notice to a law enforcement or correctional officer within 180 days after an alleged misconduct before any disciplinary action, suspension, demotion, or dismissal can be taken.  (Chapman)

CS/SB 696 (Ingoglia) and HB 729 (Holcomb) prohibit a municipality from renewing, extending, or renegotiating employments contracts with the Chief Executive Officer of a municipality or a municipal attorney within 12 months before an August primary election for the municipality’s mayor or for members of the governing body. CS/SB 696 amended the original bill to now prohibit a municipality from renewing or extending employments contracts with the Chief Executive Officer of a municipality or the city’s general counsel within eight months before a general election for the municipality’s mayor or for members of the governing body.  (Chapman)

HB 181 (Lopez) and SB 1354 (Stewart) specify the minimum factor used to calculate the cost-of-living adjustment for certain retirees and beneficiaries of the Florida Retirement System. (Cruz)

CS/HB 337 (McFarland) and SB 352 (Burgess) provide that 911 public safety telecommunicators and crime scene investigators are eligible for workers' compensation benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder, which is currently provided only to first responders. The bills specify that the time for notice of an injury or death in a compensable post-traumatic stress disorder claim must be properly noticed within 52 weeks after the qualifying event or the diagnosis of the disorder, whichever is later. (Cruz)

CS/HB 645 (Brackett) and CS/SB 908 (Rodriguez) remove the requirement on local governments to apply to the Federal Aviation Administration in order to restrict or limit the operations of drones in close proximity to infrastructure or facilities owned or operated by the local government. (Branch)

SB 438 (Rodriguez) clarifies current law to ensure that law enforcement agencies may tow a motor vehicle from the scene of the incident to their storage facility in lieu of the wrecker operator’s storage facility. Current law prohibits a law enforcement agency from placing a hold on a motor vehicle within a wrecker operator’s storage facility for more than five business days If a law enforcement agency does tow a vehicle to their own facility, the agency may not release the vehicle to the owner or lienholder until proof of payment of the towing and storage charges incurred by the wrecker operator are presented to the agency. If the agency releases the vehicle without proof of payment, they are liable for the charges. The bill also preempts to the state the regulation of claiming a lien for the recovery, removal, towing or storage of a vehicle or vessel, including the notification of fees. (Taggart)

CS/HB 415 (Porras) and CS/SB 752 (Calatayud) preempt local governments from regulating temporary commercial kitchens as it relates to licensing, permits and fees. This mimics the current regulatory structure for food trucks. The bills define a “temporary commercial kitchen” as any kitchen that is a public food establishment used for take-out or delivery meals housed in a portable movable structure that include self-contained utilities. A temporary commercial kitchen that is operated on the same premises and by a separately licensed public food service establishment may operate during the same hours of operation as the separately licensed public food service establishment. The bills do not affect a local government’s authority to regulate the operation of a temporary commercial kitchen other than what is proposed in the bills. (Taggart)

SB 262 (Bradley) and HB 1547 (McFarland), of importance to municipalities, the bills prohibit officers or employees of a governmental entity from using their position or state resources to communicate with a social media platform for purposes of content moderation. This prohibition does not apply if the entity or individual is performing routine account management of the entity’s account, attempting to remove content if it pertains to a crime or a violation of the state’s public records law, or for law enforcement or public safety purposes. The bills also preempt the collection, processing, sharing or sale of consumer personal information by a controller or processor to the state. (Taggart)

CS/HB 295 (Caruso) and CS/SB 210 (Harrell) close a loophole in current law. The bills require day or night community housing addiction treatment centers to be certified by the Florida Association of Recovery Residences. The bills also prohibit the use of marijuana on the premises of the residences in order to obtain licensure. The bills also clarify that anyone discharged from a recovery residence who refuses to leave may be charged with trespassing in lieu of an eviction proceeding. (Taggart)

SB 704 (Boyd) and CS/HB 783 (Caruso) create the Statewide Council on Opioid Abatement for the purpose of coordinating state and local efforts. Members of the council must review how settlement monies recovered from the opioid litigation brought by the state and political subdivisions have been spent and the results that have been achieved from such expenditures. The Florida League of Cities would have two appointments to the council. (Taggart)

HB 1303 (Snyder) create the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment and Housing Task Force within the Department of Children and Families. The bill directs the task force to study issues related to the regulation of treatment providers and the impact of current regulations on the site selection of community residential homes and provide recommended changes. The bill directs the task force to conduct a statewide review of zoning codes to determine the effect of local regulations. The bill exempts all certified recovery residences from state and local zoning laws or ordinances, including all requirements included in Chapter 419, Florida Statutes, which do not apply to all other single-family and multifamily dwellings from July 1, 2023, until July 1, 2026, while the study is conducted. The task force would be required to submit all findings and recommendations to the Department of Children and Families by December 31, 2024. Any future changes to provisions relating to recovery residence credentialing would be adopted by department rule beginning October 1, 2023, rather than legislatively. CS/SB 1010 (Gruters) was substantially amended to remove the creation of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Treatment and Housing Task Force and also removes the three-year exemption from local zoning laws and ordinances. (Taggart)

SB 740 (Brodeur) creates the Statewide Blue Ribbon Task Force on County Realignment within the Department of Economic Opportunity. The task force will study and evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and value of realigning county boundaries in the state. This task force will be comprised of key stakeholders, including one representative from the Florida League of Cities. (Cruz)

HB 849 (Killebrew) and SB 800 (Wright) would prohibit for-profit businesses from selling domestic cats and dogs. The bills do not prohibit a city or county from adopting an ordinance on the sale of animals that is more stringent than the bill. (Taggart)