Jacob Ogles
The House has passed “Rural Renaissance” legislation aimed at revitalizing agrarian counties — but split it up into three bills.
Portions of the legislative package were attached to other legislation, most of it controversial, before passing the measures in the lower chamber.
The House passed economic provisions in a bill (HB 991) that would also eliminate community redevelopment agencies. Shortly after, the House passed a health care bill (HB 1427) that seeks to increase medical services in rural areas but now also includes changes to scope of practice and other health care policy. That came more than a week after passing an education bill (HB 1267) that also dealt with civics curricula.
That has a lot of lawmakers anxious about whether the Senate, which already passed its own Rural Renaissance bill (SB 110) on a unanimous vote more than a month ago, will go along with the divided framework.
The legislation, a top priority of Senate President Ben Albritton, looks to create opportunities for rural communities to expand education, increase health care services and modernize commerce.
House leaders say every part of that bill appears in legislation now passed in the lower chamber, just not in one single place.
“The rural communities of this state — there are 30 of them — they’ve been neglected for many, many years,” said Rep. Griff Griffitts, a Panama City Beach Republican. “This is a small, but subtle piece to get us back to where we need to be. This will improve the quality of health care, education, roads, everything that rural communities every year come and ask us to please run an appropriation request or to please pass this bill.”
He carried the health care bill, originally considered the House companion to the Senate legislation carried by Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Democrat.
But by the time the legislation reached the House floor, the Griffitts bill had many parts of the “Rural Renaissance” package parsed out. Meanwhile, it included significant changes in scope of practice regulations in Florida health care policy.
That includes authorizing dental hygienists, who frequently operate independent practices without the oversight of a licensed dentist, to use high-end medical equipment including laser technology. It also includes changes in allowing electronic prescriptions and changes regulations involving referrals.
Many of those provisions drew significant opposition from Democrats who otherwise supported the Rural Renaissance bill. The same goes for the amendments to a redevelopment bill that contained many of the economic incentives for economic activity in rural areas.
“Once again, we are breaking down the rural Renaissance bill into another smattering of issues that have nothing really to do with rural communities,” said Rep. Allison Tant, a Tallahassee Democrat.
Rep. Mike Giallombardo, a Cape Coral Republican carrying the redevelopment bill, defended including items like ending all community redevelopment agencies (CRAs) in the state with a bill intended to stimulate economic development in low-density areas.
“We’re removing these CRAs, removing a level of bureaucracy,” he said. “This does not mean money goes away. This money goes right back to General Revenue, to the county and the cities that it belongs to, so they could pay for fire, so they could pay for police services, all those things that a CRA, when it fixed the slum and blight area, now it can start paying for those things for all those people coming into those communities.”
But what happens to the legislation over the last week of the Legislative Session remains an open question. The legislation must go back to the Senate to be considered, and chambers must pass the legislation by Sine Die on May 2. Albritton’s Office did not immediately answer queries about whether it will take up the three bills passed in the House or insist on the focused, single bill that cleared the Senate.
Tant, though, worried that House leadership threatened the potential passage of important legislation to rural communities that boasts broad bipartisan support.
“We also know that the Senate is not going to take this bill,” Tant said. “They’re not going to accept it, they’re going to send it back, or they’re going to probably kill the Rural Renaissance bill.”
