House Bill 1303/Senate Bill 2698 - Continuing Care Contacts
On Wednesday of this week, Representative Williams and Senator Saunders withdrew these bills from further legislative consideration. The management and residents council of the community that prompted the filing of the legislation reached an accord and agreed that legislation was not needed to reach intended objectives.
The Office of Insurance Regulation, FLiCRA and the Florida Association of Homes and Services for the Aging had all submitted written comments to the bill sponsors about potential problems with certain elements of the legislation, although, there were some provisions that each organization could support.
The scenario that prompted the filing of this legislation will likely encourage an expansion of the role of the Governors Continuing Care Advisory Council which considents of residents and providers to serve as a resource to mediate certain types of disagreements between residents and management at local communities.
Senate Bill 2216/House Bill 1401 - Assisted Living Facilities/Nursing Homes
Senator Rhonda Storm's legislation related to assisted living facilities and nursing homes passed out of the Senate Health Regulation Committee on Thursday. The bill has been amended to make it a little more palatbable. However, a provision still remains that all current and future nursing home residents including those at continuing care retirement communities would have to be screened against the Sexual Predator Registry. Previously, the bill would have required a full criminal background check on all current and future residents in a particular community. The House version of the legislation by Representative Hugh Gibson is less far reaching in its approach.
Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commisssion
FLiCRA released an update on Monday of this week based on the outcome of the vote by the Commission on CP 0002. To illustrate further discussion on this issue, the following article published in the Miami Herald on March 19th provides a good analysis of the ballot initiative that will likely come before voters in the fall.
The clearest aspects of Florida's biggest tax overhaul effort on November's ballot: billions in savings all but guaranteed for property owners and a just-as-likely sales-tax increase. Almost everything else: fuzzy.
How, exactly, will the Legislature plug a $9 billion-plus hole if voters approve this proposed constitutional amendment, which eliminates the state-required property tax for schools?
No one's sure.
But the proposal passed Monday by a tax commission gives legislators four options: raise the state sales tax by a penny to 7 cents statewide; eliminate billions in sales-tax exemptions; make potentially drastic cuts to the state budget; levy a new and as-yet undefined tax.
What course legislators may take -- and whether tight budgeting will pit healthcare or public safety against schools -- is unknown.
''None of these things, except for the penny increase, is certain. Nobody should be deluded about the sales taxes,'' said constitutional lawyer Bob Nabors, who drafted the proposal for tax commission member and former Senate President John McKay and has pushed variants of the idea for decades.
NOT CLEAR MANDATES
Though the amendment is written in a straightforward fashion and says the Legislature ''shall'' take all four actions to ''offset'' the eliminated property taxes, Nabors said the language could be clarified at a final vote of the Taxation of Budget Reform Commission in April.
''The intent was that this is a menu of options: cuts or revenues,'' Nabors said. ``This is pretty simple. It's basically a tax swap. How that's done? Who knows?''
Not the teachers' union. Not local governments. Not the lawmakers designated to lead the Legislature in 2010-11, when the overhaul plan would take effect.
The plan doesn't cut all school taxes, just those rates required by the Legislature. Still, the average property tax savings should be big: 25 percent in Miami-Dade, 24 percent in Broward and 18 percent in Monroe.
The future legislative leaders, Rep. Dean Cannon and Sen. Mike Haridopolos, said Tuesday that they were still digesting the plan, which had yet to be printed and released to the public.
Cannon, a Winter Park Republican slated to be House speaker, said he generally favors the plan, which mirrors House proposals, because it shifts the tax structure by ''replacing ownership taxes with consumption taxes,'' giving Floridians more control over taxes.
Haridopolos, a Melbourne Republican slated to be Senate president, said the measure cropped up so suddenly that he wasn't sure if the financial assumptions were accurate. He suggested the tax commission could still vote the measure down in April.
''There's a lot of concern about whether the numbers even add up. This was done in a rush yesterday,'' he said, calling the sudden release of the plan a ``switcheroo.''
How much will an additional penny of sales tax raise: $3 billion or $4 billion? How much will eliminating sales-tax exemptions raise: $2 billion or $6 billion? Haridopolos said he wasn't sure and that economists need to agree on these numbers. He noted the door ''is now open'' to a ''services tax'' on everything from haircuts to limousines rides.
The proposal directs legislators to review the repeal of sales-tax exemptions ''determined not to advance or serve a public purpose.'' But key items exempted now would remain exempt: food, prescription drugs, health services, residential rents, electricity and heating fuel, and items produced and sold by charities and religious groups.
''Those are sacred cows, and once you take those out, this disproportionately hits economic development and businesses, and we don't have these sacred cows,'' said Keyna Cory, a lobbyist with Associated Industries of Florida, the business group that opposes the bill.
Some economists say the increased sales taxes could increase the cost of business so much that it would stifle job creation. Others fret that sales taxes are ''regressive.'' Other economists counter that the lowered property tax will stimulate real estate, and that will in turn stimulate sales-tax growth.
The Florida Education Association union is reviewing last-minute language that established that schools would be held harmless after losing property-tax income, to make sure public education gets its money.
But that guarantee is only for the first year the swap would be in effect, which is 2010-11.
CRUNCHING NUMBERS
Meantime, county and city officials are crunching numbers to see what they'll lose to another part of the amendment: a 5 percent cap on annual tax-assessment increases of nonhomesteaded properties, such as businesses and second homes.
The 5 percent cap was estimated to save taxpayers -- and cost governments -- about $125 million next year.
House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach said the cap could put new businesses at a disadvantage if their assessment is higher than that of a long-standing business. He said the language is potentially unconstitutional. Gelber said he was conflicted about the proposal.
Gelber, like Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller of Cooper City, said he is also troubled by the idea that the Legislature would implement the proposal. No matter how it's written, he said, the Legislature has shown bad faith in following the will of the people.
''You're asking a Legislature, with deep ties to über-business, to get rid of special-interest tax breaks to help public education,'' Gelber said. ``This is a Legislature that's incredibly versatile at getting around the intent of the voters.''
