Rep. Jose Felix Diaz

Education; Revising initial scholarship eligibility criteria for the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, beginning with a specified school year; providing that participation in certain virtual schools, correspondence schools, or distance learning programs does not make a student ineligible for a scholarship under the program in certain circumstances; revising eligibility criteria for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program and applying the criteria only to initial eligibility; creating the minimum base annual salary allocation to assist school districts in providing minimum base annual salaries to classroom teachers, etc.

Charter Schools; Establishing the High-Performing Charter School Council; providing the process for approving or denying a charter school application submitted to the council; authorizing charter school sponsors and applicants to provide input to the state board regarding the council’s recommendation; providing grounds on which the council may recommend denial of, or the state board may deny, an application submitted by a high-performing charter school or a high-performing charter school system, etc.

Homestead Assessments; Providing a homestead assessment limitation for school district levy purposes to certain persons age 65 years or older; providing that certain other persons may receive the limitation; requiring property appraisers to serve a notice of intent to record a tax lien under certain circumstances, etc.

Renouncing Democratic Socialism; Renouncing democratic socialism in favor of the true American values of individual liberty and democracy, etc.

Anti-bullying and Anti-harassment in Schools; Expanding the information that private schools participating in an educational scholarship program are required to publish and provide to parents; requiring such private schools to adopt bullying and harassment policies; requiring such schools to report bullying and harassment incidents to the Department of Education, etc.

Charter Schools; Prohibiting specified individuals and entities from submitting an application to open a charter school for specified periods of time; defining the term “relative” for the purpose of applying the prohibition, etc.

Express Lanes; Prohibiting express lanes and tolls on a specified state road; requiring the Department of Transportation to remove all existing express lanes and the imposition of tolls, etc.

Vehicle and Vessel Registration Data and Functionality; Requiring the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to provide tax collectors and their approved agents and vendors with real-time access to certain vehicle and vessel registration data and functionality in the same manner as provided to other third parties, etc.

Local Government Fiscal Transparency; Expanding the scope of the Legislative Auditing Committee review to include compliance with local government fiscal transparency requirements; providing procedures for the Auditor General and local governments to comply with the local government fiscal transparency requirements; revising reporting requirements for certain local government economic development incentives, etc.

Information About Counties and Municipalities; Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to require the Chief Financial Officer, as prescribed by general law, to annually provide information about counties and municipalities to residents in a manner that allows residents to compare economic and noneconomic factors of each local government, etc.