No. HB 701
Filed under Environment & Water.
Water Management Districts; Requires Commission on Ethics to investigate lobbyist or principal who has made prohibited expenditure & to provide Governor with report of its findings & recommendations regarding such investigation; prohibits certain persons from making or accepting expenditures; requires South Florida Water Management District, in cooperation with DEP, to provide detailed report that includes total estimated remaining cost of implementation of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan & status of applicable performance indicators for all project components; requires South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force to identify certain sources of funding; authorizes water management districts to levy certain ad valorem taxes on specified property for certain purposes; requires district governing board levying ad valorem taxes for certain projects to adopt resolution approved by majority vote of voting electors in district or basin; requires that water management district's tentative budget for its proposed operations & funding requirements include district's capital improvement plan for current year & next fiscal year; requires that certain projects submitted by water management districts to department for Statewide Flooding & Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan be ranked on separate list; revises list of information that must be submitted by department for each project.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDLobbyists and principals may no longer make any direct or indirect expenditure to a water district governing board member, executive director, or officer-level employee. Those officials may not accept one either, regardless of general gift-reporting law.
The Commission on Ethics must investigate any lobbyist or principal accused of making a prohibited expenditure, then report its findings and recommendations to the Governor, who is authorized to enforce them.
St. Johns River Water Management District no longer needs the Legislature's approval to create a new basin or subdistrict; its governing board can now do that on its own by resolution.
Water districts may ask voters to approve a new property tax for capital projects. The Legislature also gains power to reject a district's state-funded budget items and capital-improvement projects unless voters funded them directly.
AIA lobbyist or principal may not make any direct or indirect expenditure to a district governing board member, executive director, or officer-level employee, and that official may not knowingly accept one either. The ban applies notwithstanding Florida's general gift and expenditure-disclosure statutes.
AIAny new subdistrict or basin in the St. Johns River Water Management District besides those the Legislature itself created used to need the Legislature's approval before taking effect. That requirement is deleted, leaving the district's own governing board free to create basins by resolution alone.
AIA water management district may levy a separate ad valorem tax on property in the district or basin to fund capital improvement projects such as water supply, water quality, flood protection, and natural-systems work, but only after district voters approve it in a general-election referendum, and only within the existing overall millage cap.
AIThe Legislative Budget Commission may now reject any individual part of a district's tentative budget funded with state appropriations, and any individual project in a district's five-year capital improvement plan, unless that project is fully funded by revenue voters approved in a referendum.
AIThe Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan must still propose at least $100 million a year, but no more than a quarter of that amount may fund projects that water management districts, rather than local governments, submitted.
AIA sworn complaint that a lobbyist or principal made a prohibited expenditure now triggers the same mandatory Commission on Ethics investigation already required for failing to register or filing false information, with findings reported to the Governor.
AIFor design, engineering, or construction contracts of $20 million or more, a district must give preference to the lowest bidder that can show district-defined minimum in-state work experience, project-specific payment and performance bonds, and at least a two-year warranty, or a comparable financial-assurance mechanism.
AIA water management district can no longer use state funds to satisfy the local-match requirement of a state grant program, unless the Legislature specifically appropriated those funds for that matching purpose.