Legislative update 2025 session and 2026 priorities

1:47:01do the

1:47:01legislative review, that would be great.

1:47:03All right, let's do it.

1:47:04Thank you.

1:47:07Morning, Commissioners, Madam Chair. Today our lobbying team is here from Tallahassee to give us a legislative update on the 2025 session. We have Sean Foster with Sunrise Consulting, Mike Moore, Southern Group, Stephen Shell where they have a few partners. And after we get done with that, we'll do be looking ahead at the 2026 uh legislative session. So I'm gonna call Sean Foster.

1:47:31Cool.

1:47:35Good morning, good morning. How are you doing? Scallop season excuse me is alive and going. We're out there this weekend. There was a ton of people even with bad weather and we got some good scallops. And um we're gonna jump in real quick and just we're gonna do the next page. I know you're limited on time. We're gonna do a a quick session overview, uh talk about the state budget, uh give you some um Legislative and policy outcomes and some issues that we've worked with Ralph and your staff with. We're gonna talk a little bit about the property taxes and uh a petition

1:48:05referendum obviously coming up here. And a big thing a lot of people are looking for is what the uh the financial outlook is gonna be going into next year. As you know, uh this year we were uh still having some of the dollars left over that we had from COVID. We also had a benefit of two point five billion. Dollars extra coming in than what was expected, but a little bit of that is going to change. So we're gonna jump to this part real quick. It just kind of gives you and I just want to go to the bottom. We passed 20% fewer bills compared to previous years. I think it's probably a good thing if I get up

1:48:35here and tell you that we passed 20% more bills. It's usually, you know, people will take you a lot more regulation and other items. But it was a huge session, and you all know what it was ruled by, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit at the end and and that was how they were gonna try to reduce the taxes that they take in as a legislature. Were they gonna do it through uh giving back folks their funding and their money through property taxes or were they gonna do it through sales tax or other ways? That's really what was the driver and the obviously the whole reason we had session extended. So

1:49:06I'm gonna jump off here and let uh we're gonna we're gonna

1:49:14Thank you, Sean. Madam Chair, Commissioners, Mr. Steinsteiger, Kabala, and the team. I'm happy to be here on behalf of the Southern Group. Just some state budget highlights you can see here. A smaller budget this year. Negotiations between the House and Senate. They yielded a $115.1 billion dollar budget for 2025 and 6. And they wanted to continue to increase the reserves. So those reserves were included $15.7 billion in reserve. So you look at the overall state budget there, you see a big portion of that is under health care, and then following that is education,

1:49:44and then we can go down the line when it comes to transportation and then general government, ag and natural resources, and public safety. We can just go to the next slide. So we're going to get into appropriations a little bit here. So our first appropriation That we succeeded at as a team is Trinity Boulevard, the multimodal corridor investment of $2.5 million. Chairman Hooper and Chairman Yeager were the sponsors for that. We're also very appreciative of not just these these members,

1:50:15but the chairs of the committees as well. When some of you were up in Tallahassee, you were able you were able to meet with yes Chair Hooper. We also were able to meet with Chair McClure as well. As well as some of their members. So as you know, when we're going through this process, you know, there's a lot of people involved, all the way from the sponsors to the governor's office. So when we think about you know who helped with this, let's remember that this kept bumping up the line as well. But we're very grateful obviously for Chair Yeager and Chair Hoover. Um the

1:50:45next one on the east side of the county. Was the Curly Road Safe or Out of School? That was sponsored by S or Chair Burgess and I like to call Leader Whip Maggard. Uh that was the full ask of the one point five and I should have said that that was the full

1:50:58ask of the

1:50:59one.

1:50:59Can I ask a question on that? Does that come out of transportation or general revenue? revenue?

1:51:05That when I would

1:51:08come out of the trust fund, the five year work plan that was out of the general revenue, it did not.

1:51:14So that's just a re so that's kind of just a reordering of our District 7 money?

1:51:18No. If it had come out of the trust fund, that would be when it comes out of general revenue.

1:51:23It did come out of general revenue.

1:51:24Correct.

1:51:25So it's in addition to the correct. We make sure to work on that.

1:51:31But if you saw this year when it comes to the r road projects, every road project Every single road project, every appropriation was at the trust fund. Actually the road projects.

1:51:40They were out of the trust fund?

1:51:42Every every road project eventually came out of the yes, was out of the trust fund. Not just ours, everybody's. That's why you probably saw a lot of get vetoed as well. But yours did it.

1:51:53But

1:51:54So l moving on. So Pasco County Fire Station number four. Um again That was Senator Burgess and that was um or Chair Burgess and Chair Yeager. Um obviously with the assistance that we have some firefighters here that are here today. They were very supportive of this appropriation and worked very hard and spent some time and obviously up in Tallahassee as well. So we're very appreciative of the the team from uh Pasco Fire Rescue for all the efforts and work that they put into to this project. Now the the unfortunate thing is the Pasco

1:52:25Emergency Selter which where where do you go? We lost we lost Oakley. Um Well well we can s I guess we can wait for that in a second if if he comes back I can I can come back to it. But um Seapines, flood abatement, that as we know that was not fun, it was never in the budget. But again the Pasco emergency Celter, I'd like to wait for him, but we can if he wants to talk about when he comes back we can as well. We'll

1:52:46bring

1:52:46it back up. But we we can we can we can yeah we can we can talk about that at the end. Uh you were doing the tax backers up?

1:52:54I I kind of told you um you know know, there's two things that really led the session and and one of it was the the tax package and we can all jump in. Um You know, I kinda people saw everybody kind of arguing, kinda fighting, and and I said, Isn't a terrible thing. The legislature is fighting on how to give money back to you. Really what it was. The governor had a way, Senator President had a way, the Speaker of the House wanted to reduce your sales tax, just to let you know the state sales tax has never been reduced in state's history. Not once. So, you know, people were

1:53:24looking at wow there he's only trying to do it by three quarter or half of a penny, but that would have been but and also the biggest thing that came out was the repeal on the business rent tax. And people kind of say, what is that? Well, when you see all these folks and all these offices up and down and those were the HVAC and plumbers or those even where you work out of the gyms, they all pay a rental tax. They all had and they reduced it some last year and they got rid of the the remainder uh this year. Some of the big items though um obviously were in there will have impacts on us. Um

1:53:55that one has impact on us.

1:53:56Yes, it does seven

1:53:57million dollars.

1:53:57I think it was close to seven now. Seven it was three, is it was seven and building up. Um there was a lot of uh reflection on rural communities. The rural bill did not pass the So Senator Alberton wanted some investments for rural communities in there. The same things that you've always seen before about you know giving back the special dollars that we do for going back to school was made permanent. They also made sure to do a lot of things that had to do with tours in the state of Florida. People come here to fish, people come here to hunt.

1:54:28They made sure a lot of those items went in there with that type of economic development. The go go as a tourism. Um and one of the things I'll say, this is gonna come back next year. Um you know, let Steve and others kind of talk about it. Um next year is gonna be a little bit tougher and I'll give you that little financial outlook. But uh in the end it it's it is the part that extended session longer than what we would all want. Um I will tell you again if you look at some of these, we've talked about these before, the ones for hurricanes and all those, all those are being made permanent. Uh so

1:54:58you no longer need to come back and do it year by year. But there was quite a bit in there. We can go to the the next one, we kind of jump into the legislative and policy outcomes and I'm gonna let Mike kind of kick us off on Senate Bill 1080.

1:55:10Thanks Sean. It real quick I'm gonna go back to if I could just the appropriations. Um so uh Commissioner Oakley were talking about appropriations. Um unfortunately one of the ones that was vetoed was the emergency shelter as we know. I can tell you that um you know Chair Burgess and And Leader Whip Maggot were obviously disappointed. They wanted to see that go through. Um it was hanging on till the end. Not just the twenty five thousand, but it was getting close at the end to actually funding it for a large amount. It got caught up in the world of what's happening

1:55:40with emergency management and where those funds are going. So they want to bring that back next year and and try again. So Okay.

1:55:49And can I Chair Chair Starkey to you? Back to the road. Um so the trust fund, it's not the same trust fund that your project's going, it's a separate trust fund just to

1:55:58go to

1:55:58the right-of-way.

1:56:02Okay, okay.

1:56:03Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is the trust fund, but it's a different it's a different

1:56:05product. Affecting our

1:56:06other projects. Correct. It doesn't touch your stuff. Okay. Okay.

1:56:11And hopefully none of the other counties in District 7 are touching our st our money either.

1:56:15I don't other county no.

1:56:17We'll find out at our MPO meeting.

1:56:19So obviously a lot of bills. We could be here all day to talk about the bills, but um there's some things that obviously Ralph and the team wanted us to go over. So the first one we're gonna talk about is SB 1080, Local Government Land Regulation. I'm going to hit some highlights on this. As it states here, it imposes strict review timelines and refund penalties for development permits, bars caps and monthly hearings that would delay decisions, and expands administrative approvals for agriculture enclave development. So again, let me do some highlights and get the weeds a little bit. One

1:56:49of the things it does is it modifies the threshold vote required to approve an impact fee from two-thirds to unanimous going forward. So if you decides, if you decide to erase impact fees, it has to be a unanimous vote of this body moving forward. In addition, it also requires local governments to implement an increase in impact fee in at least two, but not

1:57:12uh increments. Now I've had some conversations with David Goldstein on that as well, so he's he's in tune with what's with what's happening and I know um the planning department's working to make sure those uh when they move forward they're abiding by those new rules. Um Let's talk a little bit about um uh public hearing and complaining amendments. It it also specifies in certain comprehensive plan amendments um that are not adopted uh Sorry, Playmants are not adopted at

1:57:42a second public hearing. The amendments must be formally adopted within a hundred and eighty days of the secret separate second public hearing where the amendments are actually deemed withdrawn. So some of these things mean that obviously you're playing the department. Where is he at? There he is. Um are gonna have to expedite things obviously much quicker than they're

1:58:03you said after the first hearing between the first and the second hearing.

1:58:06Specifies if certain comprehensive plan amendments are not adopted at a second public hearing, the amendments must be formally adopted within 180 days of the second public hearing or the amendments are deemed

1:58:16withdrawal.

1:58:20Oh, yeah.

1:58:25That period was too long. There are multiple counties in the state that have had that problem and so they're clarifying in the legislation what r what happens if we miss the deadline.

1:58:40Something else that your team's gonna have to obviously work towards and work on is that within 30 days of receiving an application for approval of a development permit or order, a local government must review the application for completeness and either issue a written notification to the applicant indicating that everything required, anything everything that was required was submitted or specify in writing anything. Areas that are in a deficit. So for applications that do not require a final action through a quasi-judicial hearing

1:59:11or public hearing, the bill requires the local government to approve or approve with conditions or deny the application for a development permit within 120 days after the local government has deemed the application complete. So I know again, David, you're probably uh working on that now, but that's something you've got to move forward with doing. Um, something else is just to highlight for applications that do require a final action through a quasi-judicial or a public hearing, local governments must approve with conditions or deny

1:59:41the application within 100 days after the local government has deemed the application complete. A local government and applicant may agree in writing or in a public meeting or a hearing to extend the time or the process as long as the applicant agrees to that. Okay. Let's uh if we could let's move on to six. Wait, wait,

1:59:58wait.

1:59:58But there's

1:59:58more of that one eighty that at that jumped in at the very end. That's yep. That's 1080, not 180.

2:00:05We're gonna go to 180 in a minute.

2:00:06We've gotten 1080 and 180 mixed up on our first second. Oh, okay. We're gonna go to 180 next.

2:00:11I'm getting my numbers mixed up.

2:00:12Okay. Well

2:00:12you also remember.

2:00:13They're very similar. Actually, we got ecstatic. Floor association counties worked uh immensely in this building. Actually died in the Senate. They pulled off some of the language that had to do with the agricultural enclave language and brought that bill back to life. So I I just want to give you some also kudos to the Florida Station Counties. And uh the next bill, 683, I think it was Griff Griffiths, uh, did this bill, and it's really just a a new era of code review, I'll say. I mean you set statewide synthetic turf standards, requires under the 35-day Deadline

2:00:44for local governments to act on changes. Um it also I put some notes on my own it if private providers will use AI and and saw and and required to use some software-based review systems to also also expedite their their channels. Um expands the use of the private inspectors I was just talking about and prohibits permit denials for missing builder owner contracts. So again, I call it the new era of

2:01:08What does that last one mean? What does that last bullet mean?

2:01:13Prohibits permit denials of for missing builder owner contracts. That I'm gonna Andrew wrote this and worked on that bill so he's not with me. Do you remember that one? I will get back to you on that. Chairman.

2:01:25or retired commissioner more.

2:01:30there when when these when they're going through the local government Uh Changes like this. Is there any feasibility kind of study, high-level conversation about the money it takes to have to expedite or hire staff or or what we need to do, the the cost associated with it. I'm not going to get in detail. I'm just curious if any back

2:01:51Yes, a bill analysis does take in into context any any type of cost that would take to the state or to a local government. But you remember some of these are coming in quickly and some of the times we're reaching out to your Hey, what is the impact? Because an amendment can come up that they do, and that's being presented by tomorrow by five PM. So how quickly are you able to do those? But in the end the bill analysis will have them.

2:02:16Correct. That's true. Yes,

2:02:17sir.

2:02:18I hear the

2:02:19answer.

2:02:21All right, the next one, uh real brief on this one, again a little bit more with streamlining permitting, kind of like what the other bill did, uh fire prevention bill. Um is going to be doing some streamlining for small fire alarm sprinkler systems. I put some other thing here to help with the permitting. It's gonna require local governments to refund 10% of permit fees per day if deadlines are missed. And the last one enhances inspection and Reporting and limits of ordinance enforcement to those who appreciate the easement.

2:02:53That's what I had it on, correct.

2:02:55Not

2:02:55the

2:02:55over any other.

2:02:56Correct.

2:02:57Just specifically for a sprinkler permit.

2:02:59Correct. Okay. Mike's gonna jump in here on three eighty one. We'll go quick on pl

2:03:04quick on platting. As as you know, um Madam Chair and Commissioners, that a lot of these bills are a result of of sometimes mishaps by certain local governments or counties. Um that's where I feel um H B three eighty one came from. Um there were some counties out there that were holding up plaques and um after the development was approved and um Upsetting quite a few people. It wasn't Pasco County. But um

2:03:34that was happening where they were bringing those back and continuing plats and continuing plots. That's not the normal course of business, as we all know. So basically what this day is is going forward is that plat approval uh must be done without the need of going before a uh the legislative body, which be here would be the Board of County Commissioners. So So plat approval would be administrative. So the county administrator would either assign him him or herself to approve the plats or assign that to somebody else within the team moving forward. Personally,

2:04:05I don't think it's a bad thing. I think when I sit on the on this board, I was like, Why are we why are we approving these plats? We already approved these

2:04:11areas. I need to make sure they have certain things in them.

2:04:14Yeah, but it I don't think to me I don't think it's that a big a this is that big a deal. Take something off your plates and administratively you have a good team here that's gonna obviously be able to focus on what's right or wrong.

2:04:26Okay.

2:04:27Okay, utility relocation, you want to take that, Sean?

2:04:29Yeah, I'll tell you real quick. Yeah. So real quick, you talk about a bill where they t did come in and ask us from the cost, and that was 818. They absolutely came in and said, what is it going to cost your county? And it was huge numbers that they were getting. So this bill may not be as pretty as when it came at the end, but it's a lot better than when it started. Now the grant program and it there is specifically in law. Let me tell you what it literally says in law now. The law now states the burden is not shifted to local government. So t just let that settle in for me. That was the first time we ever got into law that this

2:05:00in the future could not be shifted. Uh it requires F D OT. I can show you that one 50%, creates a grant program, and that grant program, if that empties and there's not it in there, they still cannot go to the counties for the rest of that funding, shields local governments from financial responsibility. But I will tell you the Florida Association of Counties worked hard in this. Your staff gave us these amounts. We were meeting with the Senate President, Speaker's Office. So I will say, Seth, that is one of the areas where we did get the information on.

2:05:26And I talked to some of the guys um I can't remember the name of the company, the big one that does the cables. They said they told me eighty they were putting eighty million dollars estate in in a fund for this. That was the number they told me. But um I was really glad to hear we're not on the hook for it. Yeah.

2:05:45Okay, here's the big one. So 180 um will you know have an impact on many departments within Pasco County government, um all the way from obviously EM to planning from the the fire rescue uh pretty much across the board. It also on a state level two um DEM Um has there's a lot of requirements for DEM as well on the state level. So let me just hit some again hit some of the highlights. We could literally talk about this bill for probably hours.

2:06:15Yeah, it's it's it's long. detail. So some of the bigger the larger impacts. Um As you can see, post-storm permitting, counties must adopt and publish expedited post-storm permitting plans and recovery checklists. Debris management. Counties must apply for DEP authorization for at least one debris site encouraged to amend solid waste contracts. Something else when it comes to debris management as well is that there's there's section there's a part of this bill that talks about your contractors that you hire. hire

2:06:46to they that they're it's really pushing it where they can be penalized or fined if they don't move forward with doing doing their job when it comes to say debris pickup or w or something associated with the storm. So there's penalties not just for the county, there's penalties from a vent to a vendor for not moving through with something. So you hire somebody to Pick up debris, they don't do it. There's penalties if they don't move forward with with doing that as well. Um Here's a big one, feed protections. Local governments are prohibited from raising building

2:07:16inspection fees for a hundred and eight hundred and eighty days.

2:07:19Did somebody do that? Well here we waived 'em? And people are raising them? That's unbelievable.

2:07:25Daniel, there's

2:07:26there there was some New Jerk reactions. You figured that people had flood mitigation, they went into moratoriums and other words around the state. So this was a reply to a lot of the counties and cities that

2:07:35Correct. Correct. And you know, and you see some people involved in the bill. They lived in coastal communities. Um they had a lot of municipalities in their district and um Obviously there were some mishaps that they were responding to.

2:07:49Madam Chair? Yeah. Quick question. Uh with post storm permitting, uh uh even debris management, you've got FEMA requirements, et cetera, uh FEMA contracts. Mm-hmm. They want us to do certain things to stay in the NFIP. Does that get factored into when you say expedited permitting? Because if e people have to do certain things all the way through it's

2:08:09I just recall it it did be FEMA specific items on there. It was more of the ones that you had on your own.

2:08:25Okay.

2:08:25Yeah, I don't I don't suppose it's a good thing.

2:08:26But again again a lot of this was coming from post natural disasters and um and there's it and it does go retroactive back to August I think of twenty twenty. And and it led it to twenty twenty seven.

2:08:38Yeah. Part of it they're trying to push AI as well. I mentioned it earlier. Because I know there's some programs out there we might be able to even join in on.

2:08:44That that was one of the reasons why I mentioned that of the bill. They're hoping that that they see the private sector does it, that the governments would also be considering to do that to expedite the process. Okay.

2:08:53Yeah. So if a storm, if a hurricane fell or made landfall within a hundred miles. of the county or municipality within a hundred miles. Um doesn't mean you had to get hit by it within a hundred miles. There's a lot of things that uh that that triggers. So it bars moratoriums. It also um bars restrictive land use regulations post-hurricane. Um

2:09:20So for example, a moratorium on construction, reconstruction, or redevelopment of any property. So the way I interpret this is it means that you cannot have a moratorium at all. We have talked to your county attorneys about this, but that's the way I interpret it. I'll let them give you their interpretation. But I read in black and white. To me, that's what it states. And when it says a more restrictive reverse of any type of amendment to the comprehensive plan as well. So we talk about land regulations, anything you you can't touch the you can't make

2:09:50the land the comprehensive plan more restrictive. Um that also includes anything procedures coming with the issuance of a site plan or a development or permit or a development order as well. Let us all win this bill.

2:10:04A lot. A lot.

2:10:05There's a lot. I mean it we can ask we can answer as many questions as you want on it in your in the time that allows, but if if you have additional questions, fe feel free to reach out to us. Happy to have these conversations. I know we've had conversations with a lot of you. Like I said I've had conversations on multiple occasions with Mr. Goldstein as well. Um and we'll continue that to find out any answers to the other.

2:10:23I do have a question.

2:10:24I

2:10:24have a question and sorry, I got a medical text here from the family members, so I have to read it. Um So on that last bullet. Did you talk about that one?

2:10:34So um it's It's funny because I understand this came from Manatee County. a a builder in Manatee County. And uh and at NACO I talked to Manatee County commissioners who say they're gonna try and get a carve out. From This This is a good one. Which is funny when it's potentially caused by them. I but I am wondering if if um if it's possible that we could talk about that next year. for counties who are within X amount of time of finishing their comp plan.

2:11:04Because we have been working for three years on our comp plan revision. I mean the the community needs this from two thousand and six. So I'd like uh and then it puts a freeze on us and all the money we've spent getting that done to enact our L D C so I think we should talk about counties who are then certain amount of completion or have finished a recent comp plan you know, the revisions, what they which they want us to do. that maybe we can get some kind of car back.

2:11:33Sure, and those two conversations we can have with you and the your fellow commissioners the in and and to have a conversation with legislators if that's how you guide us and

2:11:42I think and I was gonna bring up the end, I think that a workshop that we did a couple of years ago worked out really, really well and it's something w we should consider and that type of information come in. We have two more gonna go through.

2:11:53So it is noon, a little afternoon. Wait, wait, I'm

2:11:56sorry, I gotta go back to a question on that one. It just came to my mind. We have all this FEMA money or HUD money. We have a certain amount of time to spend it. Some are gonna require land use change, potentially.

2:12:09A Boris. A more restrictive land use change than you currently have?

2:12:12Well, I don't know. It depends on what we're gonna try and do over there on the coast. Now they're restricting us from what we might want to do with some of our money. that we have only a certain amount of time to do it in. Right? Is do you see any conflicts there?

2:12:30I think as we get into the implementation phase and we actually see the project if they come to fruition we could better make that assessment. But I you're not wrong to assume that there could be an impact

2:12:40before that. Again, restrict is a key word though. You could free it up and make it easier.

2:12:44Well let's say you want to get rid of a mobile home park that is in a flu getting whacked and whacked and whacked by a storm.

2:12:52But if it was voluntary.

2:12:55We can have this conversation.

2:12:56I'm just thinking ahead, maybe but

2:13:02so we'll move fast. Well three we have three minutes for you, I guess we're always told. T D again No changes this year, did not pass. Um I could get in the weeds really. We worked as a team work really hard on this. Obviously you you had Adam Thomas come up with some of his team members too. We took him around. Um this will come back next year. I mean, there's no doubt we're being told it's gonna come back. We'll have to work on this again.

2:13:25Who's pushing this one?

2:13:27Well well I don't I don't like to but there's d multiple legislators. Right. Multiple legislators.

2:13:34Well remember, you know y the the argument is also trying to get tax dollars back for property taxes. So this would be the way that's

2:13:40like this would be a good segue into what Steve's gonna talk about as well. Um but it's across it the across the board. And there are people that ha that were part of this bill that live and are represent um beach areas by the way as well too. So It's not just rural counties that are looking for the money.

2:14:05No, I don't think it's rural counties. I think it's the big counties that get the big bucks.

2:14:08Well Obviously places like Orange County and you know Orlando would never want to see this.

2:14:17Hey Commissioner O Steve Shale from the Absidi Partners. The point about TDT, if it plugs in

2:14:22here,

2:14:22there basically were two proposals this year that I think will come back. One is the large county, Orange County, Miami Day, being able to use money raised over fifty million dollars for roads and housing, those kind of things. The other was the proposal that came out of the House, which was to basically take the TDT money, give it to you as general revenue and and then give rebates back for property taxes. Which I think is what we're gonna we're gonna see more of that next year. So um next uh slide here, sorry. There we go. Is that right? Sorry. I

2:14:53catch Sorry. I went to Liberal Arts College for the Izzy. Um is uh you know so the governor has talked about um uh repealing property taxes altogether. Uh just in terms of the politics, the Senate has been fairly skeptical about property tax reform in a significant way. The House uh has taken it on in a in a fairly aggressive way. Uh neither one of Governor DeSantis's proposals passed this year, but we will see it back. The House has uh formed a special committee, uh it's about thirty members.

2:15:23Uh Chaired by Vicky Lopez from Miami and Toby Overdorf, uh from Palm City. Vicki Lopez is a former county commissioner from Lee County, so she has some history in the issue.

2:15:32And

2:15:32didn't they they give her a veto of their million? Yes,

2:15:34correct. Yeah, the g governor basically said we have staff that already does this, we don't need to have another study. But the House is approaching it like they, you know, they're they're moving forward with a full full-fledged study. We've talked about increasing the homestead exemption to $500,000. There's a proposal by Senator Martin that's floated around of going to $700,000, which he says would be the uh inflation adjusted from the very first uh uh homestead exemption when we first did that. Uh I think the I would not be surprised if they go to the ballot with allowing the legislature to adjust. the homestead exemption to give them the

2:16:05power to be able to do those things. Uh and then again, I think the the big piece is this one that's shown up in all three of the all five of the proposals the House have quoted, which is that somebody should not lose their home exclusively because they can't pay the property taxes. Fully expect that we're gonna see something Particularly that something will definitely come out of the House. Again, I think that there is uh I don't know if Shaw agrees, but I think there's more of a pause in the Senate about making these big changes, concerned about the financial outlook, which we'll get to in a second. Uh petition reform uh real quick

2:16:35want to talk about because it does, Commissioner Weightman, it does get one of these things, it's not really funded. Uh the legislature uh has uh I think wisely made some changes to try to uh ratchet down what Well you know, uh petition gatherers, make sure that we know who they are, make sure that their background checked, make sure they're registered. Um And uh cut the time that you know from the time that you get a petition signed to you turn it in, I think it's gone from a month to to ten days. Uh the big thing uh it'll impact uh Commissioner Corley, I mean not Commissioner Oakley, the uh supervisor corley is um Every

2:17:06time he gets a petition for a constitutional amendment, he's gonna have to send a letter to the voter basically saying, confirming you signed this petition and giving the voter fourteen days to rescind their

2:17:18paying for that, exactly?

2:17:20You all.

2:17:21Oh my goodness.

2:17:24It's a postcard, not a letter.

2:17:26Correct. Uh yeah. But it will so that that is the the one piece of this bill. Uh again, I think there's there's a lot of changes in here that are pretty smart. That is the one change that is gonna have an impact on the county. So I think the

2:17:37What what about sorry in order in time frame about the petitioners too, the people there there was some legislation that changed because of the petitioners themselves have to live within the state of Florida.

2:17:48C correct. I mean uh the sorry I was just trying to run it through quickly. Petitioners now will have to live in the state of Florida. They'll have to register with the state. Uh that's a should be a pretty easy process. We have that pl process in place now for people that do voter registration. It'd be a very similar process. I think the the the impact the the the the piece that will impact the county is this last piece that will allow them if he gets 25 six 25,000 petitions from Pasco County residents, they'll have to send twenty five thousand. letters out uh to confirm that they did actually sign their petition.

2:18:16I I I think one of the reasons for that change was um not for this this possible referendum for this for these petitions, but um you had people coming from all over the nation that were being bust in to do these petition drives and get petitions signed so they change the law that you must be living in the state of Florida and must register.

2:18:35Um just real quick moving ahead and I'm really surprised floor association counties at the conference didn't really mention some of this, but I kind of put on there uncertainty exists. We just do not know what the next year but revenue estimating conference and I put some of the things in here, it's gonna be our weaker in state national economic variables. You know, have we seen so many things going on with the tariffs recently, last week I just heard the tariffs gave us the best June that we've ever had, but we could end up having the bet the worst July we've ever had. Uh federal cuts to programs that come down to this to the state and to the counties. We're already hearing that, we're already feeling that, we're waiting

2:19:05to see what those numbers are gonna be. And the forecasting is much less stable from the revenue estimating conference. When I told you earlier, they gave us our pot of money for 2024 to 25. We exceeded that by 2.8 billion dollars last year. This year that number has gone, it's a little bit farther down this slide. They're saying No more higher than expecting $384 million for the 2025 to 2026. Why? People are going to be spending a lot less money. We have the issue of the interest rates and consumer uh confidence.

2:19:36Um, the last thing I'll tell you is that we also saw when they did the revenue SMA conference for the first time coming out in June, we had a net negative with population. We've always talked about this. More people, more people coming to Florida. Well there still is, but there's also more people now moving out. So for the first time in June we had what we call it a net negative. Same amount of people coming in, same coming out. Um so we still have a very healthy state. People are coming here. Homes are getting a lot more expensive. Homeowners insurance has finally started to stable a little bit.

2:20:09They do.

2:20:10Less expensive states.

2:20:11And the last thing I know we I you know a lot of things you were trying to bring up, and uh I'd like to really encourage all to do another workshop like we did a couple years ago. I think we're able to really flesh out a lot of the ideas, a lot of the policy items, and and really get you ready for the appropriations. Yeah, that's currently scheduled for September 9th.

2:20:28So something that's that's strong though, and something to be positive about is um yesterday at C and B C came out again.

2:20:36So that's that's pretty positive news.

2:20:43Okay and then real quick just uh looking ahead. Uh twenty twenty six, January thirteenth, uh session convenes. Uh the committee meetings start up October twenty twenty five. So in preparation for that today after uh this afternoon I'll be sending out uh email to the organization asking back for policy and funding initiative proposals to come back to me by July twenty ninth so we can plan ahead and prepare for the September ninth. uh

2:21:13meeting that we will have and extend an invitation to our legislative delegation for you all to finalize your priorities for the twenty twenty six legislative session and with that I'll bring it to an end.

2:21:25Madam Chair? Yeah. I'd like to say um, you know, this was a big year for us, but especially for the previous year we got next to nothing. Between all the vetoes and and stuff getting through. So I think we made a great move hiring the three firms together. You guys worked together very well. No matter who was going on, we had at least one of the groups with us every step of the way. You cooperated great and again from what I see we got compared to what I expected, you guys did a phenomenal job. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks, sir.

2:21:57It's because we have more of a lobbying team.

2:22:03Oh yeah.