Florida's Latest News

Florida bill requiring high school financial course clears another hurdle

The Florida House is ready to consider a bill (HB 1115) that would require high school students to take a course in financial literacy as a condition for graduation.

The House Education & Employment Committee unanimously approved the bill Wednesday. Under the bill, students who enter high school starting in the 2022-23 academic year would be required to earn 7½ credits in elective courses, a decrease from the currently required eight elective credits. A half-credit course in financial literacy and money management would be added as a requirement for graduation.

The course would be required to include instruction on concepts related to the “basic principles of money management,” such as spending, credit and credit scores and managing debt. Lessons on computing federal income taxes, completing loan applications and opening and managing bank accounts also would be required.

Proposal to set aside $400M for broadband stripped from FL Senate bill

The state Senate and House were working in sync to legislate $500 million in funding for broadband expansion efforts.

Companion bills in both chambers had proposed setting aside $400 million to fund broadband infrastructure projects and to direct the state Department of Economic Opportunity to apply for $100 million in additional federal funding to help cover the costs of replacing utility poles with ones that can support broadband technology.

The two chambers have now diverged on specifying the amount of funding in the legislation.

While the House version at this time would appropriate millions of dollars, an amended Senate bill that passed on Tuesday strikes out the millions of dollars that were in the original version.

"In essence, this just creates the structure for the pole replacement program," said Republican Sen. Jim Boyd, the bill's sponsor. The measure passed unanimously in the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development.

Retooled elections bill ready for Thursday showdown in Florida Senate

Senate Republicans are revamping a controversial elections bill, including scaling back proposed changes to mail-in voting.

Sponsor Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, filed a lengthy amendment Tuesday, as the Senate Appropriations Committee prepares to take up the bill (SB 524) on Thursday. The bill has drawn heavy attention and came after lawmakers last year made changes to the vote-by-mail process that have been challenged in federal court.

The amendment would keep one of the highest-profile parts of the bill — creating a state Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election irregularities. Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed for creation of the office.

“Confidence in the integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining a democratic form of government,” Hutson said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “This amendment addresses the important concerns outlined at the last (Senate) committee stop, while maintaining key components of the bill that create a framework, with dedicated resources, for investigating allegations of elections fraud in a manner that is much more streamlined than current law.”

Fleeing to Florida? New arrivals explain why they moved to Tampa Bay

For a long time, researchers at the University of Florida included a question in their ongoing, decades-long survey of Floridians: If you weren’t born in this state, why are you here?

The answers remained a constant for so many years that in 2019 they stopped asking.

“ ‘The weather’ or ‘I moved here for my job’ were the two primary reasons. Considerably lower down, in third place, was ‘family,’ ” said Scott Richards, associate director at the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “It was remarkably stable, even through severe economic disruptions.”

Experts say no one knows if those reasons have changed, like so many other facets of American life have, during the coronavirus pandemic. But Florida’s elected leaders contend that something different is luring residents. Gov. Ron DeSantis touts the state as a destination for those fleeing COVID-19 restrictions. Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has suggested northeasterners are escaping “tax hell” for the income-tax-free Sunshine State.