The Legislature adjourned, sine die, at 10:40 pm on Friday evening after the usual flurry of last minute amendments and bill swapping. Today’s most compelling education related bill activity revolves around SB 1512 relating to the expansion of the Tax Credit Scholarship Program and the creation of a new voucher program for students with disabilities. As we reported to you yesterday, Senate Democrats used a procedural move to prevent HB 7167 from being substituted for SB 1512 or allow amendments to either bill which made it unlikely that that either HB 7167 or SB 1512 could pass the Legislature. However, today, Senators successfully amended the provisions of SB 1512 onto SB 850 (which had become a vehicle that had already been amended to include the substance of several other bills). SB 850 passed the Senate and subsequently passed the House. As a result, in addition to the other provisions of SB 850 (including, but not limited to, provisions relating to middle grades reforms, career education, and juvenile justice education) the bill also expands the Tax Credit Scholarship Program and creates Personal Learning Accounts for students with disabilities. We will provide a more detailed summary of this bill as soon as possible.
We are still sorting through last minute amendments, identifying other surviving bills, and confirming those that didn’t make it through the legislative process. At this point, we can offer a PRELIMINARY list (below) of the education related bills that passed during this 2014 Legislative Session. We will revise the list as needed.
HB 9 – Legislative Session Dates
HB 23 – Food Distributed Free of Charge
SB 188 – Education Data Privacy
HB 271 – Workers’ Compensation
SB 286 – Concrete Masonry Education
HB 313 – Gender-Specific School Pilot Project
HB 337 – Teachers Classroom Supply Program
SB 358 – Volunteers / Organized Youth Sports
HB 433 – Educator Certification
HB 485 – Sexual Misconduct with Students
HB 487 – Agricultural Industry Certifications
SB 674 – Background Screening
HB 785 – Workers’ Compensation
SB 846 – Governmental Ethics
SB 850 – Education
HB 851 – Resident Status for Tuition Purposes
SB 864 – Instructional Materials / Adoption
SB 1642 – Education Accountability
HB 5061 – Economic Development
HB 7009 – Security for Public Deposits
HB 7015 – Military & Veteran Support
HB 7029 – Code of Student Conduct
HB 7031 – Education / Repealer
Appropriations Bills
HB 5001 – General Appropriations Act
HB 5003 – Implementing Appropriations
HB 5005 – FRS Contribution Rates
HB 5101 – Education Funding Conforming Bill
We have begun compiling our FSBA 2014 Legislative Session Summary that will provide a detailed analysis of the education budget and detailed summaries of the education related bills that were passed during the Session. We will post the Session Summary on the FSBA website as soon as it is completed and will alert you when it is available. In addition, hard copies of the Summary will be available at each of our Legislative Session Review Workshops. We hope that you will plan to attend one of these free Workshops. The schedule, locations, and registration information is available on the FSBA website at https://fsba.org/fsba-2014-
This will be our last regular Daily Update, but we will provide periodic Updates over the next few weeks to alert you to any new developments that may arise out of the end of the Legislative Session. I hope these Updates have been useful to you. And, as always, please let me know if you have any questions.
