Collier County School Board member Erika Donalds thinks she is paid too much. Donalds, a member of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, proposed a constitutional amendment that would eliminate salaries for school board members in Florida. Commissioners will vote in the spring to decide which proposals will be placed on the 2018 ballot. Twenty-two of…
Republican lawmakers unveiled a sweeping rewrite of the tax code on Thursday, outlining a $1.5 trillion plan that will deliver a significant tax cut for corporations and more modest savings for middle-class families while tilting the United States closer, but not entirely, toward the kind of tax system long championed by businesses. Read More
From banning the death penalty to creating an elected secretary of state, members of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission have filed more than five-dozen proposals to change the state Constitution. The 37 members of the commission, which meets every 20 years and has the power to place amendments directly on the November 2018 ballot, had…
The Legislature held the second round of Interim Committee Meetings last week. Please click on the file below to access our report on the bills and presentations that were considered. In addition, please click on the files below for information and updates on this week’s Constitution Revision Commission Committee meetings, recent action in Washington on…
The Legislature will hold a second round of Interim Committee Meetings this week in preparation of the upcoming 2018 Legislative Session. Please click on the file below to access the full schedule of meetings and information on the bills, and presentations that will be considered. In addition, we have provided links to information about the State Board…
Florida lawmakers have taken great pains to include charter schools in the pantheon of the state’s public education system. But the state Ethics Commission saw things a bit differently in a draft advisory opinion offered to a Lake Wales city commissioner who also serves as legal counsel to the Lake Wales charter school system. Read…
Private schools in Florida will collect nearly $1 billion in state-backed scholarships this year through a system so weakly regulated that some schools hire teachers without college degrees, hold classes in aging strip malls and falsify fire-safety and health records. Read More — Part 1 Read More — Part 2 Read More — Part 3
In a swift, 20-minute meeting, the panel charged with updating the Florida Constitution on Tuesday rejected all but a few of the 2,012 public proposals submitted to the Constitution Revision Commission, advancing only six of them, after months of encouraging the public to submit ideas. Read More
Just to get it on the record here, thirteen Florida school boards including Pinellas County filed suit Monday in Leon County court, challenging the constitutionality of several provisions within the law created by HB 7069. The lawsuit comes as no surprise. Speculation ran rampant that such a legal battle would emerge from almost the moment after the…
The Legislature held the first round of Interim Committee Meetings last week in preparation of the upcoming 2018 Legislative Session. Please click on the file below to access our report on the bills and presentations that were considered. In addition, please click on the other files listed below for a few quick updates on items of interest.…