BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

HB 1265 (Byrd), SB 664 (Lee) and SB 1822 (Gruters) require public employers, contractors and subcontractors to register with and use the E-Verify system to verify the work authorization status of all newly hired employees by January 1, 2021. E-Verify is a United States Department of Homeland Security website that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees, both U.S. and foreign citizens, to work in the United States. A public employer, contractor or subcontractor may not enter into a contract unless each party to the contract registers with and uses the E-Verify system. HB 1265 and SB 1822 also require private employers to verify a person’s employment eligibility either through the E-Verify system or by requiring other specified documentation. A private employer may not bid on or otherwise contract with a public employer for the performance of labor or services in this state unless the private employer provides the public employer with an affidavit stating that the employer is registered with and uses the E-Verify system to verify that all newly hired employees are legal citizens of the United States or legal aliens. SB 644 requires private employers to register with and use the E-Verify system to verify the employment eligibility of new employees. (Hughes)

HB 425 (Clemons) and SB 858 (Gruters) require the Department of Management Services to calculate a cost-of-living factor for each retiree and beneficiary who was a member of the Special Risk Class on June 30, 2011, is a member of the Special Risk Class on his or her effective date of retirement and retires on or after July 1, 2011, with service credit earned before July 1, 2011. This factor shall equal the product of 3 percent multiplied by the quotient of the sum of the member's service credit earned for service before July 1, 2011, divided by the sum of the member's total service credit earned as of June 30, 2020. (Hughes)

HB 75 (Hill) revises payment amounts under the salary incentive program for law enforcement officers. Beginning in January 2021, the bill provides for annual inflation adjustment amounts. (Hughes)

CS/HB 487 (Fetterhoff) and SB 1092 (Bean) create the Firefighter Cancer Decontamination Grant Program. The grant will provide financial assistance to help fire departments procure equipment, supplies, and education training designed to mitigate exposure to hazardous, cancer-causing chemicals. The Division of State Fire Marshal within the Department of Financial Services will administer the program and annually award grants to fire departments on an as-needed basis. (Hughes)

HB 305 (Rommel) and SB 1126 (Gruters) prohibit a political subdivision, including a municipality, from establishing, mandating or otherwise requiring an employer to offer conditions of employment not otherwise required by state or federal law. An “employer” is defined as any person who is engaged in any activity, enterprise or business in this state and employs at least one employee. The bills expressly preempt the regulation of minimum wage and other conditions of employment to the state. The bills do not limit the authority of a political subdivision to regulate minimum wage or to require conditions of employment for employees of the political subdivision, employees of a contractor or subcontractor who provides goods or services to the political subdivision and employees of an employer receiving a direct tax abatement or subsidy from the political subdivision as a condition of the direct tax abatement or subsidy. Any ordinance, regulation or policy of a political subdivision that is preempted by the bills and which existed before or on the effective date of this act is void. (Hughes)

HB 215 (Casello) and CS/SB 620 (Hooper) revise the current process that must be followed for the interrogation of firefighters. The bills revise the definition of “interrogation” to include questioning related to informal inquiries. The bills require all witnesses to be interviewed prior to beginning the interrogation of the firefighter when possible. The bills also require that the firefighter be provided the complaint, all witness statements and all other existing evidence before the interrogation. A firefighter being interrogated may not be threatened with transfer, dismissal or disciplinary action. The bills also set a timeline for certain information to be provided to the firefighter and prohibit any retaliatory action against the firefighter for exercising his or her rights. The complaint and other investigative information are confidential and exempt from public records pursuant to the current law, and the “informal inquiry” does not include discussions such as safety sessions, normal operations fire debriefings and routine work-related discussions. (Hughes)

HB 99 (Andrade) and SB 1406 (Broxson)require entities that administer high-risk youth athletic activities or training related to such activities on land owned, leased, operated or maintained by the state or a political subdivision to require any unpaid or volunteer athletics personnel to complete a course approved by the Department of Health that provides information on how to prevent or decrease the chances of a participant from sustaining a serious physical injury. High-risk youth athletic activity is defined as any organized sport for children 14 years of age or younger in which there is a significant possibility for the child to sustain a serious physical injury. The term includes football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, soccer, ice or field hockey, cheerleading and lacrosse. (Cook)

HB 83 (Duran) creates a waiver of exemption from childcare facility licensing requirements for government-sponsored recreation programs that meet certain criteria, including having adopted their own standards of care. CS/SB 668 (Book) revises the definition of the term “child care facility” to exclude government-sponsored recreation programs. The bill allows counties, other municipalities and school districts to create and operate recreation programs for children at least five years old and requires such programs to offer four programming hours per day the bill specifies standards of care relating to staffing ratios, minimum staff qualifications, health and safety standards, and a level 2 background screening requirement for all staff and volunteers. CS/SB 668 also requires such programs to notify parents of all children participating that the program is not state-licensed, clarifies that the program may not advertise itself as a child care and requires the program to provide all parents with the county or municipality’s standards of care. (Cook)

SB 630 (Mayfield), CS/SB 670 (Gruters) and HB 457 (LaMarca) are bills filed relating to smoking. SB 630 authorizes cities to restrict smoking within the bounds of municipally owned public parks. SB 670 and HB 457 authorize counties to restrict smoking within any public beaches or parks. CS/SB 670 was amended with language allowing cities to also restrict smoking within public beaches and parks they own. Additionally, the bills prohibit smoking within the boundaries of a state park. (Cook)

HB 447 (DiCeglie) and SB 740 (Diaz) – Real Estate

HB 497 (Buchanan) and SB 530 (Gruters) – Entertainment Industry

HB 623 (Shoaf), SB 1154 (Baxley) and HB 1257 (Tomkow) – Community Association 

HB 855 (Payne) – Special Districts

SB 910 (Torres) and HB 6013 (Eskamani) – Rent Control Methods

SB 1410 (Cruz) – Public School Transportation

SB 912 (Diaz) and HB 689 (Rodriguez, Anthony) – Department of Business and Professional Regulation

SB 694 (Mayfield) and SB 810 (Simmons) – Nicotine and Tobacco Products 

HB 729 (Rodrigues) and SB 1238 (Diaz) – Regulatory Reform

HB 907 (Bell) and SB 1202 (Powell) – Care for Retired Law Enforcement Dogs

SB 470 (Brandes) – Searches of Cellular Phones and Other Electronic Devices

SB 980 (Brandes) and HB 685 (Silvers) – Lost, Stray, Unwanted or Homeless Dogs and Cats

HB 1195 (Plakon) – Gaming

HB 1315 (Fernandez) and SB 1752 (Pizzo) – Condominium Associations

HB 1059 (Grall) and SB 1634 (Stargel) – Parental Rights

HB 707 (Renner) and SB 1124 (Diaz) establish a schedule for systematic review of the costs and benefits of occupational regulatory programs. The bills require the Legislature to review each program before the scheduled date on which each occupational regulatory program is set to expire to determine whether to allow the program to expire, renew the program without modifications, renew the program with modifications or provide for other appropriate actions. Of note to local governments, any state program that expires through scheduled repeal may not then be regulated by a local government unless regulation of such occupations is expressly authorized by law. (Cruz)

SB 142 (Brandes), SB 176 (Rodriguez), HB 303 (Drake) and HB 301 (Drake) all involve the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC). Due to criticism of how the 2018 CRC handled the bundling of constitutional amendments on the 2018 ballot, SB 142, HB 301 and HB 303 seek to abolish the CRC. SB 176 does not seek to abolish the CRC but would require that any future CRC proposals be limited to a single subject. (Cruz)

HB 83 (Duran) and SB 668 (Book) define specified afterschool recreation programs as “government-sponsored recreation programs,” such programs are exempt from specified child care facility requirements and are authorized such programs to waive such exemption by notifying the Department of Children and Families. (O’Hara)

HB 6015 (Andrade) repeals provisions relating to the testing and approval of sparklers, sale of fireworks, seizure of illegal fireworks, restrictions upon storage of sparklers and penalties for violations. (Cook)

CS/SB 476 (Hooper) and CS/HB 307 (LaMarca) provide that community associations may not prohibit a law enforcement officer who is a unit owner from parking his or her law enforcement vehicle in an area where the unit owner or his or her guest otherwise has a right to park. (Cook)

HB 669 (Newton) and SB 1106 (Baxley) require local governments and other entities that operate a place of public accommodation or public building or facility to install and maintain at least one universal changing place at locations in a family or assisted-use restroom facility for persons of either sex who have a physical disability. (Cook)

CS/HB 625 (Newton) and SB 888 (Perry) address public nuisance properties. The bills:

•extend and increase the frequency of notice so a property owner has sufficient time to receive notice and correct the use of the property. 

•allow for shorter notice where the public nuisance presents a danger of immediate and irreparable injury. 

•provide more detail on what must be provided in the notice and serving the notice.

•delete the requirement that a criminal gang or member or associate of such gang must use a location “on two or more occasions” for the purpose of engaging in a criminal gang-related activity for such use to qualify as a public nuisance that can be abated or enjoined.

•provide that any place or premises that has been used on more than two occasions within a six-month period as the site of dealing in stolen property, assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft or robbery by sudden snatching may be declared a public nuisance and may be abated or enjoined. 

•provide that a rental property that is declared a public nuisance based upon the previously described circumstances may not be abated or subject to forfeiture under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act if the nuisance was committed by someone other than the owner of the property and the property owner commences rehabilitation of the property within 30 days after the property is declared a public nuisance and completes the rehabilitation within a reasonable time thereafter. (Cook)

HB 4533 (Antone) appropriates $5 million to the Department of Management Services to fund a grant program through Cyber Florida – Local Government Training and Technical Assistance. (Cook)

CS/SB 1120 (Harrell) and CS/HB 649 (Caruso) address individuals who have been disqualified for employment with substance abuse service providers following a failed background screening. The bills require the Department of Children and Families to provide exemptions from employment disqualification for certain offenses and condense several background screening sections of current law into a single set of requirements. The bills modify patient-brokering laws to exempt discount, waivers of payment, or payments not prohibited by federal anti-kickback statutes. The bills also apply such exemptions to all payment methods by a federal health care program and provide that patient-brokering constitutes a first-degree misdemeanor. Finally, the bills provide that any person who willfully and knowingly facilitates patient brokering is guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor. (Cook)

HB 581 (Aloupis) and SB 918 (Brandes) establish minimum requirements for a student to complete a civic literacy practicum beginning with the 2021-2022 school year to help students evaluate the roles, rights and responsibilities of United States citizens and determine methods of active participation in society, government and the political system. The civic literacy practicum must be nonpartisan, focus on addressing at least one community issue and promote civil discourse. (Cook)