The 2022 Florida legislative session begins on Jan. 11, and Osceola County’s State House representatives will go to Tallahassee to try to get several bills they’ve sponsored onto the House floor for votes.
Each representative can sponsor seven bills, along with other appropriations, which are funding requests for projects. For a bill to reach a vote it must first pass through a series of committees, and have a companion bill in the state Senate.
Representatives Fred Hawkins (District 42) and Kristen Arrington (43) each sent bills to committees when they met in November and December ahead of the start of session.
For example, Hawkins is a sponsor on House Bill 225, which has to do with the charter renewal process for charter schools.
“This is focused on students, teachers, parents,” Hawkins said. “Basically, if a charter’s up for renewal, it must be done 90 days before the end of the previous school year. If something happens with a school, everyone knows ahead of time. It prevents parents from not having a school to send their children to, or teachers who are suddenly out of work when a school year is about to start.”
Hawkins is also working on a bill requiring the same electrocardiograms that athletes in Osceola County already must have to play sports to be mandated statewide. The bill identifies the funding and opt-out exemptions.
“Nine counties already have this. In Orange County it’s already helped 22 otherwise-healthy students find issues they didn’t know about,” Hawkins said. “One out of every 300 that takes the test finds an issue.”
His HB 307 would make the information of someone adopting an animal from a shelter private, and HB 365 would provide for computer science instruction, such as coding and critical thinking, and certification for its teachers as early as elementary school.
Hawkins’ appropriations requests include grants for projects at Grace Landing and the Valencia College Lake Nona campus, and “significant funding” for equipment for specially training members fire and rescue teams who respond to disasters like hurricanes and the condominium building collapse in Miami.
Arrington had already announced two of her sponsored appropriations, a project for the Kissimmee Public Safety Training Support Annex and another for the Kissimmee Shingle Creek Regional Trail Security and Protection Project has already passed out of their first Subcommittees.
Among her bills are HB 229, which would provide expanded school guidance services on academic and career planning, “So all students have all future options laid out for them, not just college but career and technical tracks,” she said.
HB 1039, which already has a Senate companion bill, provides that homeowners association (HOA) fines levied against property owners may not become liens against the property. Arrington said hearing concerns from Poinciana, which has a de facto corporation serving as an HOA, urged this bill.
“HOAs can fine you, but this prevents the liens,” Arrington said. “I’m working with Senator Victor Torres on a bill to repeal the option to fine in general.
“Those who can’t pay one bill get charged more funds that get them further behind,” she said.
She’s also working on appropriations that would help the process of converting older hotels into affordable housing and other housing grants, such as funds to rehabilitate Victory Village, Osceola County’s first conversion project about 10 years ago, and funds for the Hope Partnership’s Attainable Housing program.
“We all know rent is increasing at a crazy rate and it’s not getting better,” Arrington said. “These things don’t solve things, but get us moving in the right direction.”
