2021 Legislative Report 2 - January 29, 2021

Posted over 4 years ago by Regina Sanders

RE: 2021 Legislative Report

DATE: January 29, 2021

THIS WEEK IN REVIEW: The second committee week of the 2021 Legislative Session is now over. Committees continued meeting, with more presentations by Agencies outlining their needs for the upcoming legislative session, as well as the first bills moving through the process. Appropriations Chairs continued to discuss how all sectors of the budget will be squeezed as they work on battling the COVID economy in Florida. The House bill drafting deadline is today and the House appropriations project deadline is Tuesday, February 2.

Governor DeSantis unveiled his 2021-22 budget proposal, called FLORIDA LEADS. In it, he proposed a $96.6 billion budget, up $4.3 billion from last year including $2.6 billion in COVID related spending. The Governor has left $6.6 billion in reserves to be able to deal with unforeseen COVID expenditures. Some of the increases in spending he is asking for include $344 million in education to continue teacher salary raises and $277 million for the Department of Economic Opportunity to be able to assist with all of the unemployment claims and other issues that arise.

Here is a link to the Governor’s Proposed Budget for 2021-22: http://www.bolderbrighterbetterfuture.com/HomeFY22.htm

Amy Baker, Chief Economist for the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, presented to the House Tourism, Infrastructure, and Energy Committee this week. She stated that as a whole, Florida tourism was down more than 30% in the ten months of COVID so far. She cited the 60% decrease in air traffic as the largest issue as those who fly into the state stay longer and spend more money than those who drive. While confident that it will recover, she stated that Florida’s tourism-sensitive economy is particularly vulnerable to the longer-term effects of the pandemic.

With the upcoming Super Bowl in Tampa in a week, discussions on human trafficking are increasing. Attorney General Ashley Moody is teaming up with Uber to educate their drivers to know the signs. “Hosting the Super Bowl in Florida for the second year in a row is a huge win for our state’s economy and tourism, but as we learned from Super Bowl LIV, traffickers will look to exploit this event to advance illegal enterprises at the expense of innocent victims,” Moody said in a news release. In the Super Bowl hosted in Miami last year, 47 arrests were made and 22 victims rescued due to the increased awareness.

The next committee week will be starting on Monday, February 1. The 2021 Legislative Session will begin Tuesday, March 2, 2021.