No. SB 1666
Filed under Occupational.
Department of Business and Professional Regulation; Revising the list of boards and programs established under the Division of Professions within the department; designating the Division of Professions of the department as the division overseeing yacht and ship brokers; deleting a requirement that the board regulating cosmetologists or cosmetology specialists review an applicant’s criminal record; renaming the Certified Public Accountant Education Minority Assistance Advisory Council as the Certified Public Accountant Education Opportunity Assistance Advisory Council; revising the quorum requirements of the Construction Industry Licensing Board, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDNearly every professional and real estate licensee regulated by the department must create an online account, use email as the primary point of contact, and file applications through the department's online system, since paper applications will no longer be processed.
The Division of Professions formally absorbs oversight of yacht and ship brokers, mobile barbershops, community association managers, and the Building Commission, moving broker penalty fees into the Professional Regulation Trust Fund.
Prescription drug wholesale distributors no longer need a state-certified "designated representative" personally accountable for daily operations, since the entire certification track, with its exam, work-history rules, and background check, is repealed.
The CPA scholarship council drops its minority-focused eligibility criteria and reserved seats, construction licensing exams lose their sensitivity-review committee, and barber and cosmetology boards lose their two-term limits and fixed quorum floors.
AIEvery person or entity licensed, permitted, or applying for a license through the Division of Professions or Division of Real Estate must open an online account, use e-mail as the department's primary contact method, and file applications only through that system.
AISection 499.01211 is repealed and subsection (15) of section 499.012 is struck, eliminating the requirement that every prescription drug wholesale distributor designate and maintain a natural person, certified by the department, to serve as its representative.
AIAdds a licensing track for barbershops that operate out of vehicles rather than fixed locations, requiring the department to write rules on their facilities, personnel, and sanitary standards, and requiring each one to keep a permanent business address and file a monthly itinerary.
AIRedefines the division that regulates yacht and ship brokers from the old Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes to the Division of Professions, and redirects broker fees and civil penalties into the Professional Regulation Trust Fund instead.
AIRemoves cosmetologists and cosmetology specialists from the list of professions for which a board must use the statutory process for reviewing an applicant's criminal history; only barbers, listed construction contractors, and correctional vocational-program professions remain on that list.
AIRenames the Certified Public Accountant Education Minority Assistance Advisory Council to the Education Opportunity Assistance Advisory Council, drops minority status as a scholarship-eligibility factor, and eliminates its reserved seats for named minority-accountant associations and its female-member requirement.
AIRemoves the requirement that the department maintain a sensitivity review committee, with representatives of ethnic and minority groups, to screen construction licensing exam questions for discriminatory content before they can be used.
AIReplaces the fixed five-member quorum for each division of the Construction Industry Licensing Board with a threshold of 51 percent or more of that division's appointed members, and widens when the board may borrow members from the other division to reach quorum.