CHAPTER 2020-167 HB 915

ENROLLED CS/CS/HB 915, Engrossed 2 2020 Legislature 

An act relat­ing to com­mer­cial ser­vice air­ports; amend­ing s. 11.45, F.S.; direct­ing the Audi­tor Gen­er­al to con­duct spec­i­fied audits of cer­tain air­ports; defin­ing the term ​“large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port”; amend­ing s. 112.3144, F.S.; requir­ing cer­tain mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing body of a large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port to com­ply with cer­tain finan­cial dis­clo­sure require­ments; pro­vid­ing that a sep­a­rate fil­ing is not required under spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances; defin­ing the term ​“large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port”; cre­at­ing s. 332.0075, F.S.; pro­vid­ing def­i­n­i­tions; requir­ing the gov­ern­ing body of a munic­i­pal­i­ty, coun­ty, or spe­cial dis­trict that oper­ates a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port to estab­lish and main­tain a web­site; requir­ing the gov­ern­ing body to post or pro­vide links to cer­tain infor­ma­tion on the web­site; pro­vid­ing for the redac­tion of con­fi­den­tial or exempt infor­ma­tion regard­ing cer­tain con­tracts; requir­ing com­mer­cial ser­vice air­ports to com­ply with cer­tain con­tract­ing require­ments; pro­vid­ing excep­tions; requir­ing the gov­ern­ing body to approve, award, or rat­i­fy cer­tain con­tracts; requir­ing gov­ern­ing body mem­bers and employ­ees of a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port to com­ply with cer­tain ethics require­ments; requir­ing gov­ern­ing body mem­bers to com­plete annu­al ethics train­ing; requir­ing gov­ern­ing bod­ies of com­mer­cial ser­vice air­ports to sub­mit cer­tain infor­ma­tion annu­al­ly to the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion; requir­ing the depart­ment to review such infor­ma­tion and sub­mit an annu­al report to the Gov­er­nor and Leg­is­la­ture; pro­hibit­ing the expen­di­ture of cer­tain funds unless spec­i­fied con­di­tions are met; pro­vid­ing an effec­tive date.

Be It Enact­ed by the Leg­is­la­ture of the State of Florida: 

Sec­tion 1. Para­graph (m) is added to sub­sec­tion (2) of 38 sec­tion 11.45, Flori­da Statutes, to read: 

11.45 Def­i­n­i­tions; duties; author­i­ties; reports; rules.— 

(2) DUTIES. — The Audi­tor Gen­er­al shall: 

(m) At least once every 7 years, con­duct an oper­a­tional and finan­cial audit of each large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port. Each oper­a­tional audit shall include, at a min­i­mum, an assess­ment of com­pli­ance with s. 332.0075, includ­ing com­pli­ance with chap­ter 287, and com­pli­ance with the pub­lic records and pub­lic meet­ings laws of this state. For pur­pos­es of this para­graph, the term ​“large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port” means a pub­licly owned air­port that has at least 1 per­cent of the annu­al pas­sen­ger board­ings in the Unit­ed States as report­ed by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion.

The Audi­tor Gen­er­al shall per­form his or her duties inde­pen­dent­ly but under the gen­er­al poli­cies estab­lished by the Leg­isla­tive Audit­ing Com­mit­tee. This sub­sec­tion does not lim­it the Audi­tor Gen­er­al’s dis­cre­tionary author­i­ty to con­duct oth­er audits or engage­ments of gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties as autho­rized in sub­sec­tion (3).

Sec­tion 2. Para­graph © is added to sub­sec­tion (1) of 59 sec­tion 112.3144, Flori­da Statutes, to read: 

112.3144 Full and pub­lic dis­clo­sure of finan­cial interests.— 

(1)

© Each mem­ber of the gov­ern­ing body of a large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port, except for mem­bers required to com­ply with the finan­cial dis­clo­sure require­ments of s. 8, Art. II of the State Con­sti­tu­tion, shall com­ply with the finan­cial dis­clo­sure require­ments of s. 112.3145(3). For pur­pos­es of this para­graph, the term ​“large-hub com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port” means a pub­licly owned air­port that has at least 1 per­cent of the annu­al pas­sen­ger board­ings in the Unit­ed States as report­ed by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration. 

Sec­tion 3. Sec­tion 332.0075, Flori­da Statutes, is cre­at­ed to read: 

332.0075 Com­mer­cial ser­vice air­ports; trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty; penalty.— 

(1) As used in this sec­tion, the term: 

(a) ​“Com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port” means a pri­ma­ry air­port as defined in 49 U.S.C. s. 47102 which is clas­si­fied as a large, medi­um, or small hub air­port by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration. 

(b) ​“Depart­ment” means the Depart­ment of Transportation. 

© ​“Gov­ern­ing body” means the gov­ern­ing body of the coun­ty, munic­i­pal­i­ty, or spe­cial dis­trict that oper­ates a com­mer­cial ser­vice airport. 

(2) Each gov­ern­ing body shall estab­lish and main­tain a web­site to post infor­ma­tion relat­ing to the oper­a­tion of a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port, including: 

(a) All pub­lished notices of meet­ings and pub­lished meet­ing agen­das of the gov­ern­ing body. 

(b) The offi­cial min­utes of each meet­ing of the gov­ern­ing body, which shall be post­ed with­in 7 busi­ness days after the date of the meet­ing in which the min­utes were approved. 

© The approved bud­get for the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port for the cur­rent fis­cal year, which shall be post­ed with­in 7 busi­ness days after the date of adop­tion. Bud­gets must remain on the web­site for 2 years after the con­clu­sion of the fis­cal year for which they were adopted. 

(d) A link to the Air­port Mas­ter Plan for the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port on the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion’s website. 

(e) A link to all finan­cial and sta­tis­ti­cal reports for the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port on the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion’s website.

(f) Any con­tract or con­tract amend­ment exe­cut­ed by or on behalf of the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port in excess of the thresh­old amount pro­vid­ed in s. 287.017 for CAT­E­GO­RY THREE, which shall be post­ed no lat­er than 7 busi­ness days after the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port exe­cutes the con­tract or con­tract amend­ment. How­ev­er, a con­tract or con­tract amend­ment may not reveal infor­ma­tion made con­fi­den­tial or exempt by law. Each com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port must redact con­fi­den­tial or exempt infor­ma­tion from each con­tract or con­tract amend­ment before post­ing a copy on its website. 

(g) Posi­tion and rate infor­ma­tion for each employ­ee of the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port, includ­ing, at a min­i­mum, the employ­ee’s posi­tion title, posi­tion descrip­tion, and annu­al or hourly salary. This infor­ma­tion shall be updat­ed annually.

(3)(a) Notwith­stand­ing any oth­er pro­vi­sion of law to the con­trary, com­mer­cial ser­vice air­ports are sub­ject to the require­ments of chap­ter 287 for pur­chas­es of com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices which exceed the thresh­old amount pro­vid­ed in s. 287.017 for CAT­E­GO­RY THREE. If the pur­chase of com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices exceeds the thresh­old amount pro­vid­ed in s. 287.017 for CAT­E­GO­RY THREE, the pur­chase of com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices may not be made with­out receiv­ing com­pet­i­tive sealed bids, com­pet­i­tive sealed pro­pos­als, or com­pet­i­tive sealed replies unless an excep­tion applies as pro­vid­ed in s. 287.057(3) or an imme­di­ate dan­ger to the pub­lic health, safe­ty, or wel­fare or oth­er sub­stan­tial loss to the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port requires emer­gency action. 

(b) A gov­ern­ing body must approve, award, or rat­i­fy all con­tracts exe­cut­ed by or on behalf of a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port in excess of the thresh­old amount pro­vid­ed in s. 287.017 for CAT­E­GO­RY FIVE as a sep­a­rate line item on the agen­da and must pro­vide a rea­son­able oppor­tu­ni­ty for pub­lic com­ment. Such con­tracts may not be approved, award­ed, or rat­i­fied as part of a con­sent agenda.

(4)(a) Mem­bers of a gov­ern­ing body and employ­ees of a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port are sub­ject to part III of chap­ter 112. How­ev­er, this para­graph does not pro­hib­it the appli­ca­tion of more strin­gent eth­i­cal stan­dards adopt­ed by coun­ty or munic­i­pal char­ter, ordi­nance, or res­o­lu­tion of the gov­ern­ing body for its mem­bers and employees. 

(b) Begin­ning Jan­u­ary 1, 2021, each mem­ber of a gov­ern­ing body must com­plete 4 hours of ethics train­ing each cal­en­dar year which address­es, at a min­i­mum, s. 8, Art. II of the State Con­sti­tu­tion, the Code of Ethics for Pub­lic Offi­cers and Employ­ees, and the pub­lic records and pub­lic meet­ings laws of this state. This require­ment may be sat­is­fied by com­ple­tion of a con­tin­u­ing legal edu­ca­tion class or oth­er con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion class, sem­i­nar, or pre­sen­ta­tion if the required sub­ject mate­r­i­al is cov­ered there­in. Con­sti­tu­tion­al offi­cers and elect­ed munic­i­pal offi­cers who are mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing body who com­plete the ethics train­ing required in s. 112.3142 shall be con­sid­ered in com­pli­ance with this paragraph. 

(5)(a) Begin­ning Novem­ber 1, 2021, and each Novem­ber 1 there­after, the gov­ern­ing body of each com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port shall sub­mit the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion to the department: 

1. Its approved bud­get for the cur­rent fis­cal year. 

2. Any finan­cial reports sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion dur­ing the pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar year. 

3. A link to its website. 

4. A state­ment, ver­i­fied as pro­vid­ed in s. 92.525, that it has com­plied with part III of chap­ter 112, chap­ter 287, and this section. 

(b) The depart­ment shall review the infor­ma­tion sub­mit­ted by the gov­ern­ing body of the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port and post­ed on the air­port’s web­site to deter­mine the accu­ra­cy of such infor­ma­tion. Begin­ning Jan­u­ary 15, 2022, and each Jan­u­ary 15 there­after, the depart­ment shall sub­mit to the Gov­er­nor, the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, and the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives a report sum­ma­riz­ing com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port com­pli­ance with this section.

(6) The depart­ment may not expend any funds allo­cat­ed to a com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port as con­tained in the adopt­ed work pro­gram, unless pledged for debt ser­vice, until the com­mer­cial ser­vice air­port demon­strates its com­pli­ance with this section. 

Sec­tion 4. This act shall take effect Octo­ber 1, 2020. 

COD­ING: Words strick­en are dele­tions; words under­lined are additions.