CS/CS/HB 625 — Children’s Initiative Projects
by Health and Human Services Committee; Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee and Rep. Bracy Davis and others (CS/SB 1578 by Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee and Senator Thompson)
This summary is provided for information only and does not represent the opinion of any Senator, Senate Officer, or Senate Office.
Prepared by: Children, Families, and Elder Affairs Committee (CF)
The bill makes numerous changes to s. 409.147, F.S., to restructure, streamline, and clarify the requirements and objectives of children’s initiatives in Florida.
Specifically, the bill:
- Renames s. 409.147, F.S., from “Children’s Initiatives” to “Florida Children’s Initiatives.”
- Renames the “Parramore Kidz Zone” to the “Orlando Kidz Zones” and expands the reach of the initiative to encompass the Orlando neighborhoods of Parramore, Mercy Drive, and Englewood.
- Renames the “Tampa Sulphur Springs Neighborhood of Promise Success Zone” to the “Tampa Sulphur Springs Neighborhood of Promise.”
- Removes the specification that existing children’s initiatives are 10-year projects and makes changes throughout to extend current requirements and exemptions enumerated for children’s initiatives to all Florida Children’s Initiatives, including requirements for public records and meetings and procurement of commodities or contractual services.
- Expands the ways in which a county or municipality must recognize a not-for-profit corporation that will serve as a children’s initiative to allow a county to identify an existing, qualified not-for-profit corporation, as a children’s initiative instead of creating one.
- Grants counties that do not currently have a children’s initiative and are trying to establish an initiative priority for designation as a children’s initiative.
- Expands the youth support objectives of the children’s initiative working group to include increasing “postsecondary enrollment, and postsecondary completion rates among neighborhood youth” not just “increasing high school graduation” and the safety objectives of the working group to “reduce youth incarceration” in addition to the currently required “reduce youth violence, crime, and recidivism.”
- Makes technical and conforming changes throughout to implement the substantive changes of the bill.
If approved by the Governor, or allowed to become law without the Governor’s signature, these provisions take effect July 1, 2023.
Vote: Senate 40-0; House 115-0