Florida Senate - 2016                                     SB 394
       
       
        
       By Senator Hays
       
       
       
       
       
       11-00555-16                                            2016394__
    1                        A bill to be entitled                      
    2         An act relating to unlicensed activity fees; amending
    3         s. 455.2281, F.S.; prohibiting the Department of
    4         Business and Professional Regulation from imposing a
    5         specified fee in certain circumstances; providing for
    6         applicability of the waiver; providing an effective
    7         date.
    8          
    9  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   10  
   11         Section 1. Section 455.2281, Florida Statutes, is amended
   12  to read:
   13         455.2281 Unlicensed activities; fees; disposition.—In order
   14  to protect the public and to ensure a consumer-oriented
   15  department, it is the intent of the Legislature that vigorous
   16  enforcement of regulation for all professional activities is a
   17  state priority. All enforcement costs should be covered by
   18  professions regulated by the department. Therefore, the
   19  department shall impose, upon initial licensure and each
   20  subsequent renewal thereof, a special fee of $5 per licensee,.
   21  Such fee shall be in addition to all other fees imposed,
   22  collected from each licensee to and shall fund efforts to combat
   23  unlicensed activity. However, the department may not impose this
   24  special fee on a license renewal for any profession whose
   25  unlicensed activity account balance, at the beginning of the
   26  fiscal year before the renewal, totals more than twice the total
   27  of the expenditures for unlicensed activity enforcement efforts
   28  in the preceding 2 fiscal years. This waiver applies to all
   29  licensees within the profession, and assessment of the special
   30  fee may not begin or resume until the renewal cycle subject to
   31  the waiver has ended for all of the licensees in that
   32  profession. This waiver does not apply to a profession that has
   33  a deficit in its operating account or that is projected to have
   34  such a deficit in the next 5 fiscal years. Any profession
   35  regulated by the department which offers services that are not
   36  subject to regulation when provided by an unlicensed person may
   37  use funds in its unlicensed activity account to inform the
   38  public of such situation. The board with concurrence of the
   39  department, or the department when there is no board, may
   40  earmark $5 of the current licensure fee for this purpose, if
   41  such board, or profession regulated by the department, is not in
   42  a deficit and has a reasonable cash balance. A board or
   43  profession regulated by the department may authorize the
   44  transfer of funds from the operating fund account to the
   45  unlicensed activity account of that profession if the operating
   46  fund account is not in a deficit and has a reasonable cash
   47  balance. The department shall make direct charges to this fund
   48  by profession and may shall not allocate indirect overhead. The
   49  department shall seek board advice regarding enforcement methods
   50  and strategies prior to expenditure of funds; however, the
   51  department may, without board advice, allocate funds to cover
   52  the costs of continuing education compliance monitoring under s.
   53  455.2177. The department shall directly credit, by profession,
   54  revenues received from the department’s efforts to enforce
   55  licensure provisions. The department shall include all financial
   56  and statistical data resulting from unlicensed activity
   57  enforcement and from continuing education compliance monitoring
   58  as separate categories in the quarterly management report
   59  provided for in s. 455.219. The department may shall not charge
   60  the account of any profession for the costs incurred on behalf
   61  of any other profession. With the concurrence of the applicable
   62  board and the department, any balance that remains in For an
   63  unlicensed activity account, a balance which remains at the end
   64  of a renewal cycle may, with concurrence of the applicable board
   65  and the department, be transferred to the operating fund account
   66  of that profession.
   67         Section 2. This act shall take effect July 1, 2016.