No. HB 1303
Filed under Local Government.
Department of Financial Services; Establishes Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight within DFS; provides purpose & duties of agency; requires agency to conduct audit of certain local governments; authorizes agency to request certain information; provides penalties for noncompliance with such request; removes requirement that specified hotline be operated for certain amount of time each day; removes requirement that hotline be advertised in specified manner; requires specified employees to take certain training annually; requires first training be completed by specified deadline; requires certain employees who report information to Florida Agency for Fiscal Accountability be afforded same protection as whistle-blowers; prohibits local governments from executing certain documents with specified provisions; provides that such contracts are void; requires local governments submit certain report to DFS; requires counties to use certain contract tracking system.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDThe Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight, created inside the Department of Financial Services, must audit any local government that raises a tax or millage rate. It can fine noncompliant governments $1,000 a day and later withhold their state funds.
Government employees, elected officials, and volunteers must take annual financial ethics training, starting within 30 days of joining. Anyone who reports financial misconduct to the new agency gets whistle-blower protection, without having to report to a supervisor first.
A local government or its vendor cannot be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, or barred by contract, from cooperating with the new agency. Any contract clause that does this is void.
The state's governmental-efficiency hotline no longer has to run 24 hours a day or use a fixed slogan, and now also takes suggestions about local government. Counties must start posting their contracts on the state's online contract tracking system.
AIA local government must notify the new Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight within 5 days of authorizing a referendum to levy or raise a tax or millage rate, and the agency must then audit it, requesting whatever information it decides it needs for that audit.
AIIf a local government does not fully answer the audit request, the Chief Financial Officer can fine it up to $1,000 a day starting 15 days after the request, then withhold state funds starting 45 days after the request until it complies.
AIEach county must post a new contract's parties, procurement method, dates, pricing, deliverables, total compensation, and performance measures to the state's contract tracking system within 30 days of signing, matching the duty state agencies already have.
AIAn employee who reports financial misconduct to the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight is legally protected the same as any other whistle-blower, and does not have to report it to a supervisor or local official first.
AIA local government or vendor contract cannot bar the vendor from working with the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight, and cannot force a nondisclosure agreement covering that cooperation; any such clause is void.
AIEvery local government must file a Local Government Efficiency Report with the Department of Financial Services by October 30 each year, in whatever format the department's rules require, and the department forwards findings to the Legislature by January 1.
AIThe Chief Financial Officer no longer has to keep the governmental-efficiency hotline staffed around the clock or brand it with the 'Get Lean' slogan, and the hotline now also takes tips about local government waste, not just state waste.