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This week marked the halfway point of the 60-day legislative session and was an abbreviated week with lawmakers returning home to their districts for Passover and Easter. The two-day respite will be brief and legislators are expected to continue the final sprint to the scheduled May 5th close of session on Monday. Below is the weekly rundown of what happened in Tallahassee.
House and Senate Pass Budgets, Setting Table for Negotiations
The House and Senate spent time on the floor this week to pass their proposed Fiscal Year 2023-2024 budgets. $700 million apart- $113 billion (House) and $113.7 billion (Senate) respectively- the budget is the one constitutionally required bill the Florida Legislature must pass each year. The legislature will use the remaining time in session to negotiate the budget through what is called conference committees before session’s scheduled conclusion on May 5.
One area of the budget that the Florida Chamber is closely monitoring is the economic development silo. The House, consistent with legislation that has been filed in their chamber, eliminates funding for VISIT FLORIDA and Enterprise Florida. The Senate proposes funding Enterprise Florida at $12 million and VISIT FLORIDA at $80 million. For the Job Growth Grant Fund, a program that funds transportation and workforce development projects, the House proposes $25 million in funding and the Senate has proposed $75 million. Both Chambers fund Space Florida at $12.5 million, but only the House includes an additional $6 million for the Space Florida Infrastructure Fund.
Finally, the House and Senate are over $3 billion apart in funding the 5-year Florida Department of Transportation Work Program. For the Moving Florida Forward Plan, the Governor’s proposal to accelerate 20 congestion relief projects, the House and Senate both allocate $2 billion in the back of the budget with the Senate indicating its intention to provide a second payment of $2 billion next year to fully fund the plan. The Governor had initially requested $4 billion, which would be leveraged into $7 billion in total funding.
Sweeping Insurer Accountability Legislation Filed
?This week, SB 7052 was filed and passed as a proposed committee bill by the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee with the stated goal of holding bad actors in the insurance industry accountable. Unfortunately, and as the Florida Chamber shared in committee, the bill as drafted paints a much broader stroke encompassing several lines of insurance and opens the door for billboard trial attorneys to continue to abuse our civil justice system.
Earlier this session the legislature passed and Governor Ron DeSantis signed monumental lawsuit abuse reform legislation backed by the Florida Chamber, HB 837, to improve Florida’s bottom-five legal climate. One key component of HB 837 was bad faith reform, a legal tool used by the plaintiffs’ bar to collect damages beyond what is insured for. Unfortunately, SB 7052 contains provisions that would unravel some of the good work done in HB 837 and could open the door to more bad faith claims and additional litigation.
Other provisions of the bill are also a deterrent in making Florida an attractive place to do business for additional insurance carriers. The House filed a bill late Thursday (PCB COM4) that does not include the concerning provisions of the Senate bill, and both bills will have additional committee hearings in the coming weeks. The Florida Chamber is already actively engaged in ensuring that the scope of the Senate bill is narrowed to truly go after any bad actors in the insurance industry and does not undo the good work of HB 837 or create unintended consequences for the insurance industry as a whole.
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