2020 Legislative Wrap-Up Prepared by The Southern Group and City of Lakeland July 20, 2020 I. Community Development A. Affordable Housing – SHIP & SAIL Position: Support increased funding of the State’s SHIP and SAIL programs in the 2020-21 Budget. Identify opportunities to reduce the shortfall in low income housing units in Lakeland. Final Action: For the first time in many years, the Florida Legislature fully funded the Sadowski Trust Fund. The 2020-21 Budget contained $370,000,000 for affordable housing funding in Florida. Of that amount, $115,000,000 is allocated to State Apartment Incentive Loan Program, $225,000,000 for State Housing Initiatives Partnership and $30,000,000 set aside for Hurricane Michael recovery efforts in the Florida Panhandle. The Budget was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 29th, and went into effect on July 1st. In his veto message, the Governor vetoed the $225M for the SHIP Program, returning those funds to the Local Government Housing Trust Fund, to be used at a later date, due to the introduction of Federal funds. On Thursday, June 25th, Governor DeSantis announced that he was directing $240,000,000 in Federal CARES Act funding to be used for rental and mortgage assistance for families impacted by COVID-19. The funds will be split into 2 pots of $120M each. The first pot, Rental Assistance for Affordable Housing Tenants, will provide assistance for households (backdated to April) in multifamily rental properties in the FHFC’s portfolio. The second pot of money, Rent & Mortgage Assistance, will provide funds to counties based on their reemployment assistance rate during the disbursement period. The funds can be used for rental and homeowner assistance services, including construction, rehabilitation, mortgage buy-downs, down- payment and closing costs. Per CARES Act rules, funds that are not spent by December 31st will revert back to the U.S. Treasury. A special session to address the Budget is possible after the November election. Continued advocacy is needed to demonstrate the need for funds which have different eligible activities than those of the Federal CARES Act funds. In addition, HB 1339, by Rep. Clay Yarborough, provides greater flexibility to cities and counties is the provision allowing them to approve development of affordable housing on any parcel zoned residential, commercial or industrial, without the need for rezoning. The bill also requires cities to fully offset costs to developers if a linkage is assessed for an affordable housing project. HB 1339 passed the House 101-10 and the Senate 39-0. The bill was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 9th, and went into effect on July 1st. 1. B. Impact Fees Position: Oppose HB 637 and SB 1066 which would place further restrictions on the implementation of impact fees by cities and counties. Final Action: HB 637 by Rep. Nick DiCeglie and SB 1066 by Senator Joe Gruters prohibits new or increased impact fees from applying to current or pending permit applications. Other provisions that would have limited permissible expenditures of impact fee revenues and created impact fee review panels were removed before final passage. SB 1066 passed the House, 81-37 and the Senate 36-0. SB 1066 was sent to Governor DeSantis and signed into law on June 20, 2020. The bill went into effect on July 1st. C. Florida Polytechnic University Position: Support Florida Polytechnic University’s 2020-21 operational funding requests, as well as the $12 million Applied Research Center PECO project. Final Action: The 2020-21 Budget contained $40,461,961 for Florida Polytechnic University. The base funding will allow the University to continue to expand its student population. Unfortunately, despite being the top- ranked project on the BOG PECO list, Florida Poly did not receive PECO funds for the new Applied Research Center. Construction is underway, and funds will be needed in the 2021 Session to complete the project. The Budget was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 29th and goes into effect July 1st. Legislatively, Florida Polytechnic was faced with a bill that sprang up in the House during Session that would have ‘merged’ the University with the University of Florida. HB 7087, by Rep. Randy Fine, passed two committees, but was not brought up for a vote on the House Floor. No Senate companion bill was filed. The bill died at the end of Session. D. Polk State College Position: Support Polk State College’s 2020-21 operational funding requests, as well as their $16 million PECO project. Final Action: The Budget did not contain dollars for capital PECO projects for Polk State. The 2020-21 Budget contained $32,943,228 in base funding for Polk State College, an increase of more than $2M from the previous year. The Budget was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 29th and goes into effect July 1st. 2. II. Municipal Finance A. Communications Services Tax Position: Oppose HB 701 and SB 1174 which seek to reduce the amount that municipalities collect from the Communications Services Tax. Final Action: HB 701 and SB 1174 would have reduced the local CST rate to 5% in 2021 and then down to 4% the following year. The bills would have also repealed the local option sales surtax conversion levied on communications services. The Revenue Estimating Conference determined the bills would cost local governments up to $190M in lost revenue, annually. Fortunately, the bills were not heard in committee and were not added to the Tax Package. The bills died at the end of Session. B. Local Business Tax Position: Oppose legislation which would place restrictions on the authority of municipalities to collect or spend Local Business Taxes. Final Action: No legislation was filed to directly restrict the collection or spending of local business taxes. HB 3, by Rep. Michael Grant, would have preempted the licensing of certain occupations to the State, thereby reducing the collection of taxes from specified businesses. HB 3 passed the House 78-40, but the Senate companion, SB 1336 by Senator Keith Perry, did not make it out of its second committee of reference. The bills died at the end of Session. C. Commercial Lease Sales Tax Position: Monitor legislation which would decrease or eliminate the sales tax on commercial leases. Final Action: HB 7097, by Rep. Bryan Avila, was the House’s Tax Package for 2020. In its original proposal, the bill reduced the tax rate on rental of commercial real estate from 5.5% to 5.%, beginning January 1, 2021. However, this provision did not make it into the final, negotiated Tax Package. HB 7097 passed the Senate 36-2 and the House 104-8. HB 7097 was signed into law by Governor DeSantis on April 8th and went into effect July 1st. 3. D. Florida Sports Development Program Position: Oppose HB 1369 and HB 6057 which would repeal Florida’s Sports Development Program. Final Action: HB 1369, by Rep. Cary Pigman, and HB 6057, by Rep. Bryan Avila, would have repealed Florida Statutes relating to professional sports franchises, as well as Spring Training facilities, including Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland. The bills would have prohibited the use of state and local funding for the construction, or improvement, of facilities for sports franchises and would have required that any lease or sale of land for a sports facility must be at fair market value. Both bills passed their committees, but, since there were no Senate companion bills filed, neither were heard on the House Floor. The bills Died at the end of Session. 4. III. Municipal Governance A. Municipal Election Dates Position: Oppose legislation dictating when municipal governments can hold their elections. Final Action: No legislation filed to mandate specific dates for municipal elections. B. Building Inspector Certifications Position: Support legislation which increases the pool of qualified candidates for building code inspector and plans examiner certification. Final Action: No legislation filed to increase the pool of qualified candidates for building code inspectors. C. Public Broadband Access Position: Oppose legislation which would restrict the authority of municipalities to provide, or partner with internet service providers to provide, public broadband to its citizens and business community. Monitor SB 1166 which would allocate funding for broadband infrastructure projects within the multiuse corridors. Final Action: No legislation filed to restrict the authority of cities to provide public broadband to its citizens and business community. HB 969, by Rep. Brad Drake, and SB 1166, by Senator Ben Albritton, designates the Department of Economic Opportunity as the lead agency for the expansion of broadband internet service in Florida. The bill also allocates $5M per year from M-CORES funding to projects that will assist in development of broadband service in rural areas along the M-CORES routes. HB 969 passed the House 114-0 and the Senate 37-0. The bill was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 9th and went into effect on July 1st. 5. IV. Law Enforcement & Medical Services A. School Safety Position: Support increased funding of the Safe Schools Allocation to include charter schools, as well as increased funding and flexibility for City Police Department officers to provide for safety of schools and students. Final Action: The 2020-21 Budget contains $180,000,000 for the Safe Schools Allocation, which requires school districts to prioritize funding for safe school officers. This is the same amount as current year. There was an additional $41,500,000 in 2019-20 unspent funds for the Aaron Feis Guardian program. Legislators intended those funds for training during FY 20-21, however, Governor DeSantis vetoed the line item when he signed the Budget on June 29th. HB 7065, by Rep.