Rick Roth Updates on Recent Legislative Session
House District 85 Representative Rick Roth, featured at the April lunch, gave us his overview of the recent session in Tallahassee.
Agriculture in the state is declining, he said, with subsidized farms in Mexico taking their toll. The big priority to come will be water – having enough clean and available as the population grows from 20 to 30 million.
The session was dominate by the impact of Hurricane Irma and the Parkland shootings. The Parkland bill was done quickly and is a good first step. Calling it a “massive failure of government” – from BSO to the FBI, the response was bipartisan. $400M was set aside for school safety, resource officers will be added to the schools and more funding will be available for mental health programs.
In the financial area, $170M in tax savings was passed and an additional property tax exemption will be on the ballot in November, along with a proposal to require a 2/3 majority of the legislature to increase taxes or fees.
Through the strong leadership of Richard Corcoran in the House, we passed an $88M budget with additional spending on education, public safety, medicaid, and land conservation. $15K in sales tax savings were granted to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to help with the mandate to buy generating equipment.
On opioids, prescriptions will be registered and there will be new transparency in record keeping.
Some specific bills mentioned were HB37 to allow primary care agreements to not be regulated as insurance, and HB351, which will bring transparency to prescription drug prices.
Also at the meeting was Baxter Troutman, candidate for Agriculture Commissioner. A citizen farmer and cattle rancher from Polk County, Baxter has been placing people in farm jobs in Florida and Georgia for 21 years. His five top issues for the campaign are: Water resources, the citrus greening disease that has reduced crops by 75%, Labor – finding enough, land – prevent crowding out of farms by developers, and NAFTA, which is killing Florida agriculture.
Next Month, join us on May 23 for Michele and Joseph Assad, the former CIA agents who have written the book “Breaking Cover”.