With less than two weeks remaining in this Legislative Session, the tempo of business is likely to increase and meeting schedules will become more unpredictable. After today, committees will meet only if called for a specific reason and both chambers will devote most of their time to floor sessions and conference committee work. In addition, advance notice for meetings will grow shorter – from days to hours – making it harder to have an accurate advance agenda for each day’s events. Also, as expected, the Legislature has come to agreement on budget allocations and the members of the various Budget Conference Committees have been named (listed in the second file below). The Conference Committees for each budget area will be working through Thursday evening to resolve differences in their budget area. Any items not resolved by that time will be “bumped up” to the Senate and House Appropriations Chairs – Senator Rob Bradley and Representative Travis Cummings — for resolution. Please note that the Budget Conference Committees may meet with only one hour advance notice so, as mentioned above, it is difficult to ensure that we have an accurate advance agenda for each day’s events. However, as always, we will provide updates throughout the day here and encourage you to check in often. To get your bearings before diving into the hectic eighth week of the Legislative Session, please be sure to watch our FSBA Weekly Video Update featuring FSBA Executive Director Andrea Messina providing a recap of the main events during the seventh week of the Session.
Today’s agenda includes consideration, on 3rd Reading, of the Senate’s School Safety bill – SB 7030 – as well as bills relating to health and mental health, elections, public records, and curriculum. Today’s schedule is posted in the first file below and will be updated to show the outcome on these bills as soon as possible after each meeting concludes.
[toggle title=”Committee Meetings & Floor Sessions – April 23, 2019“]
Please note that all of the meetings listed below may be viewed in real time via live webcast on the Florida Channel or may be viewed later in the Florida Channel Video Library. Also note that clicking on the bill numbers linked below provides access the bill summary, analysis, related bills, and other information.
In the Senate Session:
Bills on 3rd Reading:
SB 7030 – School Safety & Security by Education – READ 3RD TIME; PASSED THE SENATE
The bill builds on the enhanced school safety and security requirements established in SB 7026 (enacted in the 2018 Legislative Session) by addressing the legislative recommendations of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) Public Safety Commission. In brief, the bill:
- Provides options to implement the requirement for at least one safe-school officer (SSO) at each public school facility that include (1) School Resource Officer; (2) School Safety Officer, law enforcement employed by district; (3) School Guardian; and (4) School Security Guard.
- Authorizes a school district, if the school board chooses, to allow school personnel, including classroom teachers, to volunteer to serve as a School Guardian in the district.
- Allows a school district to send its private security guards through Guardian Program training in order to serve as safe-school officers for the district.
- Authorizes a charter school to choose to participate in the School Guardian Program or contract with a security agency for private security guards.
- Clarifies that, if a school district chooses to participate in the Guardian Program, the school board may still choose to limit which school employees can volunteer to participate in the program.
- Provides that, if a district employee volunteers for the program, he or she must: meet school district requirements to be eligible to participate, must meet the Sheriff’s Office requirements to be eligible to participate (background and psychological screening), and must pass all training and testing requirements to the Sheriff’s satisfaction to be certified as a Guardian.
- Specifies that, even if a volunteer meets all requirements, an individual may not serve as a Guardian unless appointed by the superintendent.
- Authorizes a superintendent to designate a law enforcement officer as the district school safety specialist.
- Standardizes risk assessment data collections and compliance by requiring the use of a uniform school security risk assessment tool and including first responders in the assessment.
- Clarifies that the Office of Safe Schools (OSS) must make the Florida Safe Schools Assessment Tool (FSSAT) available to schools no later than May 1 of each year. Schools have until October 15 of each year to complete the security risk assessment using the FSSAT.
- Addresses the identification of student safety issues by requiring a standardized, statewide student threat assessment process and requiring improved reporting or school safety and discipline incidents.
- Promotes the FortifyFL mobile suspicious activity reporting tool and requires active assailant response plans.
- Clarifies that districts must report incidents involving any person that occur on school premises, on school transportation, and at off-campus, school-sponsored events.
- Expedites services for students with mental or behavioral disorders and provides for the continuation of intervention services for students who transfer to a different school.
- Expands the authorized uses of the mental health assistance allocation and provides school district flexibility for expenditures.
- Establishes a workgroup to review campus hardening policies and recommend a prioritized list of strategies and the estimated costs of and timeframes for implementation.
- Provides school districts with greater flexibility by authorizing the transfer of additional categorical funds within the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) towards school safety expenditures, and expands authorized uses of the safe schools allocation.
SB 7048 – Disclosure of Confidential Records by CFEA – READ 3RD TIME; PASSED THE SENATE
The bill addresses the legislative recommendations of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) Public Safety Commission. The bill requires that when a patient communicates a specific threat against an identifiable individual to a mental health service provider, the provider must release information from the clinical record of the patient sufficient to inform the threatened individual. The provider must also inform law enforcement of the threat. The bill provides immunity from civil or criminal liability to the administrator of a mental health facility, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other treatment providers who disclose information conveyed to them by a patient communicating a threat to a specific, readily identifiable third party.
SB 292 – Education/Graduation Ceremony by Lee – READ 3RD TIME; AMENDED; PASSED THE SENATE
The bill provides that a district school board may not prohibit a student from lawfully wearing the dress uniform of any of the Armed Forces of the United States or of the state at his or her graduation ceremony.
SB 1080 – Hazing by Book – READ 3RD TIME; PASSED THE SENATE
The bill amends statutory provisions relating to the crime of hazing occurring on the post-secondary level (Section 1006.63, F.S.), but may have implications on the PreK-12 level (Section 1006.135, F.S.) The bill:
- Amends and reorganizes the definition of hazing on the post-secondary level to include:
- oInitiation, admission, or affiliation into or with any organization operating under the sanction of a postsecondary institution; and
- oThe perpetration or furtherance of a tradition or ritual.
- Creates a third degree felony hazing crime under circumstances where the victim sustains a permanent injury from the hazing.
- Expands the current protection of persons who are members of or applicants to a student organization from hazing to include a person who is a former member of the organization.
- Provides that persons who solicit others to commit the crime of hazing or who plan any act of hazing may be prosecuted as if they actively participated in the hazing event
- Provides that, if the hazing results in a permanent injury to the victim, the crime is a third degree felony.
- Provides that a person who provides aid, before medical assistance, law enforcement, or campus security arrive on the scene or if an individual is the first to call 911 seeking medical attention for a hazing victim, and who otherwise cooperates with and assists first responders may not be prosecuted for the crime of hazing.
Bills on Special Order (2nd Reading):
SB 354 – Immunization Registry by Montford – READ 2nd TIME; AMENDED; PLACED ON 3RD READING FOR 4/24/19
As amended, the bill:
- Directs certain health care practitioners to report vaccination administration data to the Department of Health (DOH) immunization registry when vaccinating children up to 18 years of age or college or university students at a college or university health center who are 19 to 23 years of age.
- Permits a parent or guardian of a child up to 18 years of age or a college or university student 19 to 23 years of age to opt out of being included in the immunization registry.
- Specifies that each consent to treatment form provided by a health care practitioner or by an entity that administers vaccinations to children from birth through 17 years of age must contain a notice stating that the parent or guardian of a child may refuse to have his or her child included in the immunization registry.
- Provides that such a decision not to participate in the immunization registry must be provided to DOH and the healthcare practitioner and all records regarding the child or student must be removed from the registry.
- Directs school boards and private school governing bodies to establish and enforce a policy requiring that before a child may attend a public or private school, the child must have on file a Florida Certification of Immunization (FCI) with the DOH immunization registry.
- Provides that any child who does not participate in the immunization registry must present or have on file with the school an FCI form, which will be a part of the student’s permanent record and be transferred with the student if the student transfers.
- Provides that school boards and private school governing bodies must establish and enforce a policy requiring appropriate scoliosis screening at the proper age.
In the House Session:
Bills on Special Order (2nd Reading):
HB 401 – Mastery-Based Education by DiCeglie
(As of 9:35 pm, the House had not taken up this bill. We will provide a summary of action on the bill in Wednesday’s Session Spotlight.)
In the Senate Rules Committee:
SB 838 – Public Records/Mental Health Treatment by Powell – AMENDED; PASSED WITH A COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE (CS)
The bill creates a new public records exemption to provide that all petitions for voluntary and involuntary admission for mental health treatment, court orders, and related records filed with or by a court are confidential and exempt from public records requirements. The pleadings and other documents may be disclosed by the clerk of court, upon request, to certain persons or agencies, such as the petitioner, the respondent and their legal representatives, as well as the Department of Corrections and Department of Children and Families. The bill provides that records made confidential and exempt from public disclosure can be submitted by the clerk of the court to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as required by law.
SB 236 – Public Records and Public Meetings by Book – PASSED; PLACED ON SPECIAL ORDER CALENDAR FOR 2ND READING ON 4/25/19
The bill maintains the current confidential and exempt nature of complaints or referrals that involve allegations of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct but expands the confidential and exempt nature of such complaints to include circumstances in which the alleged violator seeks to make such records and proceedings public. In effect, this protects the alleged victim as well as the alleged violator. The bill also prohibits the disclosure of the personal identifying information of an alleged victim of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct or any information that could assist an individual in determining the identity of such alleged victim in a portion of a proceeding conducted by the Commission on Ethics (COE) or like local commission which is open to the public. However, such information may be disclosed to another governmental entity in the furtherance of its official duties and responsibilities or to the parties to the allegation and their attorneys. The bill also creates a new public meetings exemption to make exempt any portion of a meeting that would reveal any records involving an allegation of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct.
SB 1730 – Community Development & Housing by Lee – AMENDED; PASSED WITH A CS
The bill amends various statutes relating to community development and housing. Of interest to school districts, the bill amends several provisions relating to impact fees. In this area, the bill:
- Provides that the collection of the impact fee may not be required to occur earlier than the date of issuance of the building permit for the property that is subject to the fee.
- Provides that the impact fee must be proportional and reasonably connected to, or have a rational nexus with, the need for additional capital facilities and the increased impact generated by the new residential or commercial construction.
- Provides that the impact fee must be proportional and reasonably connected to, or have a rational nexus with, the expenditures of the funds collected and the benefits accruing to the new residential or nonresidential construction.
- Provides that the local government must specifically earmark funds collected under the impact fee for use in acquiring, constructing, or improving capital facilities to benefit new users.
- Provides that the revenues generated by the impact fee may not be used, in whole or in part, to pay existing debt or for previously approved projects unless the expenditure is reasonably connected to, or has a rational nexus with, the increased impact generated by the new residential or nonresidential construction.
- Provides that the local government must credit against the collection of the impact fee any contribution, whether identified in a proportionate share agreement or other form of exaction, related to public education facilities, including land dedication, site planning and design, or construction and any contribution must be applied to reduce any education-based impact fees on a dollar-for-dollar basis at fair market value and the credit must be based on the total impact fee assessed and not on the impact fee for any particular type of school.
- Provides that, if a local government increases its impact fee rates, the holder of any impact fee credits which were in existence before the increase, is entitled to the full benefit of the intensity or density prepaid by the credit balance as of the date it was first established.
- Provides that, in any action challenging an impact fee or the government’s failure to provide required dollar-for-dollar credits for the payment of impact fees, the government has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the imposition or amount of the fee or credit meets the requirements of state legal precedent and or the provisions of this bill. In such actions, the court may not use a deferential standard for the benefit of the government.
[/toggle]
[toggle title=”Budget Conference Committees“]
[NOTE: The Senate has only one Education Appropriations Subcommittee while the House has two – one for PreK-12 Education and one for Higher Education. As a result, the same Senate Education Conference Committee members serve on both of PreK-12 Budget Conference Committee and the Higher Education Conference Committee.]
Full Budget Conference Committee
Senator Rob Bradley, Chair
Representative W. Travis Cummings, Vice Chair
Representative Bryan Avila
Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto
Senator Oscar Braynon
Representative Ben Diamond
Representative Dane Eagle
Representative Heather Fitzenhagen
Senator Anitere Flores
Representative Joseph Geller
Senator Audrey Gibson
Representative Evan Jenne
Representative Mike La Rosa
Representative Kionne L. McGhee
Senator Bill Montford
Representative Ray Rodrigues
Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez
Representative David Santiago
Senator David Simmons
Senator Wilton Simpson
Representative Chris Sprowls
Representative Charlie Stone
Representative Jennifer Mae Sullivan
PreK-12 Education Conference Committee
Senator Kelli Stragel, Chair
Representative Chris Latvala, Vice Chair
Senator Dennis Baxley
Senator Lauren Book
Representative James Bush III
Representative Tracie Davis
Senator Manny Diaz
Representative Byron Donalds
Senator Anitere Flores
Representative Brett Thomas Hage
Representative Sam H. Killebrew
Representative Ralph E. Massullo
Representative Stan McClain
Senator Bill Montford
Senator Jason Pizzo
Senator David Simmons
Representative Josie Tomkow
Representative Susan L. Valdes
Representative Patricia H. Williams
Representative Ardian Zika
Higher Education Conference Committee
Senator Kelli Stragel, Chair
Representative Randy Fine, Vice Chair
Representative Ramon Alexander
Senator Dennis Baxley
Senator Lauren Book
Representative Colleen Burton
Senator Manny Diaz
Senator Anitere Flores
Representative James Grant
Representative Tommy Gregory
Representative Dotie Joseph
Senator Bill Montford
Representative Wengay Newton
Representative Tobin Rogers Overdorf
Senator Jason Pizzo
Representative Mel Ponder
Representative William Cloud Robinson, Jr.
Representative Ana Maria Rodriguez
Senator David Simmons
Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith
[/toggle]
