Florida Weekend Recap – February 13

Florida Weekend Recap – February 13

A recap of this week’s best political and policy happenings; Historic City News brings you what you missed this week in Florida policy and politics.

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
The Office of Insurance Regulation approved nearly 80,000 more policies for removal from Citizens Property Insurance, bringing the total number of policies approved for take-out in 2015 up to 488,405. | Florida once again leads the nation in the number of foreclosure filings in January with one in every 441 houses in some stage of the foreclosure process, according to new data from real estate analysis firm RealtyTrac. The state also contained eight of the 10 cities with the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, including Tampa, Orlando and Miami. | Although the money wasn’t included in a line item on President Obama’s budget, Florida officials at the local, state and federal level are hopeful that they can secure funding for a $126 million expansion of Central Florida’s SunRail commuter service from a pool of money the President set aside for “unrated” rail projects. | Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jared Moskowitz held a news conference where they said they would push for legislation to decouple greyhound racing from gambling, a policy that is strongly opposed by the Florida Greyhound Association.

ECONOMY
Rep. John Wood and Sen. Denise Grimsley have filed a pair of bills to repeal a prohibition era law requiring that retailers sell liquors and spirits at locations separate from their main retail business. | ADP Payroll’s monthly jobs report found that Florida generated a solid 14,400 jobs in January, which is a significant drop from December’s extraordinary 21,700 job increase. By far the largest gains were in service providing industries, which tend to pay less than goods producing industries like manufacturing. High-tech jobs did well in Florida last year, increasing 4.2 percent with the addition of 12,500 technology focused jobs throughout 2014. | A new report from state economists points out that if current trends continue retirees will outnumber workers in Florida 2 to 1 by 2030 which could lead to chronic worker shortages, especially in highly skilled or technologically intensive industries. | State economists ranked applications from four sports stadiums projects seeking government funding and found that Orlando’s request for a soccer stadium had the greatest economic benefit, followed by proposals from the city of Jacksonville, Miami’s SunLife Stadium and the Daytona International Speedway, although the Speedway disputed the accuracy of those rankings.

EDUCATION
Gov. Rick Scott said Florida schools spend too much time on testing and that the Legislature should correct that in the upcoming legislative session. | Florida lawmakers will attempt to change the calculation used to comply with the constitutional amendment mandating smaller class sizes. HB 665 would use a school average rather than counting each class. School districts can be penalized up to $3,000 per student for each classroom over the mandated limit, under the current system. | A bill requiring local governments to make walking to school safer passed its first House panel. | Lost in translation: a new Columbia University report shows that the vast majority of community college students intend to transfer to a university and earn a bachelor’s degree, while only about 17 percent accomplish this. The Community College Research Center said “there are significant barriers to transfer — the most pressing being the loss of credits that community college students experience when they transition to four-year institutions.”

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
HB 383 by Rep. Katie Edwards, which would clarify statute after the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a landowner has a right to recover damages incurred when government entities deny land use permits on the basis of an owners’ failure to turn over money or property, passed its first committee. | An amended version of a massive water policy bill was submitted by the House State Affairs Committee. In addition to labeling 33 large “first magnitude” springs for extra evaluation, the amended version includes a list of smaller “second magnitude” springs for monitoring. But the amended language doesn’t include regulations for protection zones around “impaired” springs. | The Army Corps of Engineers is discharging more water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries. Environmentalists used the opportunity to renew calls for the purchase of a large swath of U.S. Sugar land south of the Everglades to alleviate the effects of discharges into the estuaries. | A multi-pronged Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reform bill was submitted by the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Subcommittee. The proposal revises punishments for illegally feeding wildlife like gators and bears.

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Stiff upper LIP: Though Eliot Fishman of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that Florida wouldn’t receive more funding for its Low Income Pool program, Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee says he’s hopeful the Legislature can make changes that will allow it to still capture that federal funding. | Rep. Bill Hager’s, R-Boca Raton, bill (HB 21) creating a voluntary certification program for sober homes or halfway houses was unanimously passed by the House Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee. | Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, is hopeful that her bill expanding controlled substance prescribing authority to registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants has a better chance of passing this year, especially with reports of a worsening doctor shortage. Under the measure, advanced registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants would be able to prescribe controlled substances independently of a doctor. | Advocates’ hopes of passing an expanded medical marijuana law may have been dashed when Sen. Rob Bradley, chairman of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee, said he was leery of an expansion. Bradley’s committee is the first stop for Sen. Jeff Brandes’, R-St. Petersburg, medical marijuana measure.

LAW & ORDER
The Department of Corrections will renegotiate contracts with two private health care companies that provide care to inmates after reports of understaffing and medical neglect cast doubt on whether the companies were providing proper care. | The corrections system was sued by six employees who say new rules forbidding prison inspectors from speaking about open or closed investigations with any member of the public are being used to illegally silence criticism of the prison system. | Florida’s texting and driving ban may get new teeth after a House subcommittee passed a bill by Rep. Irv Slosberg that would charge individuals involved in fatal accidents that were found to be using a wireless device at the time of the incident with a second degree felony. | Sen. Joe Negron, the chair of the Senate’s Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations committee, threatened to reduce state funding to local governments unless the counties paid money to DJJ that they are withholding over a dispute about how much their share of detention costs for juveniles should be.

POLITICS
State lawmakers have stopped taking hunting trips, courtesy of U.S. Sugar, to King Ranch in Texas. U.S. Sugar continues to contribute sizable amounts in cash, but the company has stopped paying for the secret trips. “I want the fundraising to be open and transparent,” said incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes. | The House Democratic Caucus have called a meeting next week to elect Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, as their next leader. She will succeed Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, has the post through 2016. | Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, filed a bill removing the requirement that write-in candidates must reside with the district at the time of qualifying. The proposal comes after multiple challenges of the requirement as it differs from those with a party who must be a resident at the time of election. | In the wake of the ouster of FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey and accusations of staff involvement, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater has enlisted the Florida Channel to once again broadcast Cabinet aide meetings.

PUBLIC SECTOR
Heavy Lyft: Because Miami-Dade County and Florida state government have failed to regulate ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft, the taxi cab businesses are asking a Miami federal court to prohibit the ride-for-hire companies from operating and force them to pay damages for hurting their business. | Circuit Judge James Daniel ruled that State Attorney Angela Corey’s office must pay about $26,000 in attorney’s fees and costs because the office didn’t provide public records to a citizen in a reasonable amount of time. Curt Lee first sued Corey in April 2012 because, the suit said, her office wasn’t giving him records in a timely manner and in some cases wasn’t giving him records a t all. | Meanwhile, three public records exemptions (HB 185, HB 469 and HB 467) sailed through two different House panels. The measures would shield the personal information of military service members, victims of sexual assault or human trafficking and exempt safe houses for such victims from public records laws.