Today marks day 30 of the legislative session, with 30 more days to go. As the Legislature starts the second half the session, lawmakers have passed 19 bills out of the 1,814 bills filed this legislative session. Of those 19 several were major initiatives, including a $711 million affordable housing bill (SB 102) that was a priority for the Senate president, and an expansion of the state's school voucher system that makes it universally accessible to all 2.9 million Florida school-age children (HB 1) that was a priority for the House speaker. Both of those bills have already been signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Other high profile already enrolled bills include a measure making several changes to the civil lawsuit rules (HB 837) and a bill (HB 543) allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, also both already signed by the governor.

The two proposed budgets for the July 1 start of the fiscal year , one drafted by the Senate (SB 2500) and one by the House (HB 5001) have passed in each chamber, both unanimously. The $113 billion House proposal is roughly $700 million under the Senate’s proposed $113.7 billion spending plan for the fiscal year. Both proposals are less than the nearly $115 billion the governor recommended. On the budget, the two chambers will begin to work on setting funding allocations of how much of the available money will go toward each section of the budget for the coming year and work in conference committees to finalize an agreement. Issues that can't be agreed on by the Joint Budget Conference Committees are "bumped" to each chamber's Appropriations Committee chairs who try to work out the sticking points. In some cases, the differences may be decided by the House speaker and the Senate president. The end result of these negotiations is called the Conference Committee Report, which must “sit on the desk” for 72 hours before each chamber votes on the final version of the budget.  

As we move closer to the May 5^th end of session, the House and Senate timelines for posting agenda calendars shortens. The Senate and House are on 2-day notice, so we do not have the calendar for next week’s committee hearings at this time.

This weeks bills of importance:

Consumer Protection - 1185 by Giallombardo/1398 by DiCeglie – We expect both of these bills to be heard next week.

The bill adds an additional disclosure requirement that must be included in an agreement to sell or lease a distributed energy generation system (DEGS), including:

· The customer contact center phone number for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The purpose of this is to provide consumers with available resources to assist with any issues or questions related to the installation of the DEGS;

· A statement in substantially the following form: “You should consider the age and remaining life of your roof prior to installing a distributed energy generation system. Replacement of your roof may require re[1]installment of the distributed energy generation system;” and

· A statement in substantially the following form: “Placing a distributed energy generation system on your roof may impact your future insurance premiums. You are responsible for contacting your insurance carrier, prior to entering into a purchase or lease agreement, to confirm whether your current policy or coverage will need to be modified upon installing the distributed energy generation system onto your dwelling.” For an electronic delivery of a document containing the required disclosures to satisfy the requirement that written statement be acknowledged, the bill provides that it must be sent within 24 hours after execution of the written statement.

Energy - SB 284 by Brouder/ HB 1025 by Caruso – SB 284 is ready for a full vote on the Senate floor and HB 1025 is sitting in it’s last committee of reference.

The bill expands the definition of “single-trade inspection” for purposes of building code inspection services to include inspections of the installation of electric vehicle charging stations and solar energy and energy storage installations or alterations. This allows the property owner to contract with a private provider for the inspection services rather than rely solely on the local government code inspectors.

Municipal Utilities – HB 1331 by Busatta-Cabrara

The bill limits the portion of municipal utility revenues that may be used to fund or finance a municipality’s non-utility related general government functions. In doing so, the bill limits the rate of transfer for municipal electric, natural gas, and water or wastewater utilities. Under the bill, the greater the proportion of customers outside of the city boundaries that a municipal utility serves, the lower the cap is on transfers. Currently, there are 33 municipal electric utilities in the state.

Municipal Electric Utilities - SB 1380 by Martin – This bill was temporarily postponed and has not been placed on the agenda.

The bill makes revisions to Florida’s public utility code to establish that if a municipal electric utility operates outside of the municipality’s corporate boundaries, the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) must regulate that utility as a public utility. This would essentially regulate such a municipal utility as if it was an investor-owned electric utility and give the PSC additional authority over such a municipal utility’s rate setting and customer service complaints.