TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — More school vouchers. Expanded restrictions on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity. Limits on using TikTok. Carrying guns without concealed-weapons licenses. A larger Florida State Guard.
More than 200 laws passed during the 2023 legislative session, including a record $116.5 billion budget, will take effect Saturday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed nearly 300 bills that the Republican-controlled Legislature passed during the session. About one-third went into effect immediately or will hit the books in October or January.
Here are some of the laws that will take effect Saturday:
--- SB 2500, a $116.5 billion budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which will run from Saturday through June 30. DeSantis vetoed $510.9 million from the budget passed by lawmakers in May.
--- HB 1, expanding taxpayer-funded vouchers to all Florida students and eliminating income-eligibility requirements.
--- HB 5, eliminating Enterprise Florida, the state’s business-recruitment agency. Contracts and programs will be shifted to the Department of Economic Opportunity, which will be renamed the Department of Commerce.
--- SB 106, designating $200 million to help link hiking and biking trails, which are part of the Shared-Use Nonmotorized Trail Network, to a statewide wildlife corridor.
--- SB 240, offering tax breaks for businesses that employ apprentices or pre-apprentices.
--- SB 262, placing restrictions on large online companies about collecting and using consumers’ personal data.
--- SB 264, preventing, with some exceptions, property purchases in Florida by people from China who are not U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents.
--- HB 389, allowing school districts to provide free menstrual hygiene products in schools.
--- HB 411, changing residency requirements for county school-board members. The bill will require board members to reside in the districts they represent by the date they take office, rather than at the time they qualify to run.
--- HB 477, imposing eight-year term limits on school-board members, down from the current 12 years.
--- SB 540, allowing “prevailing” parties to recover legal fees in challenges to local government comprehensive growth-management plan changes.
--- SB 766, allowing school districts to use cameras designed to capture images of drivers who illegally pass school buses.
--- SB 846, banning state colleges and universities and employees from accepting gifts from “foreign countries of concern” — China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.
--- HB 931, prohibiting colleges and universities from using “political loyalty” tests in hiring, admissions or promotions.
--- HB 1035, spelling out various rights of teachers, including a right to “control and discipline” students and to challenge certain directives from school districts they believe violate state law or State Board of Education rules.
--- HB 1259, requiring school districts to share portions of local property-tax revenues with charter schools.
--- HB 1305, requiring the Department of Transportation to conduct inspections of the Walt Disney World monorail system. The requirement comes amid a long-running feud between Disney and DeSantis.
--- SB 1318, extending liability protections for aerospace companies if crew members are injured or killed in spaceflights.
--- HB 1379, directing $100 million a year from real-estate taxes to the Florida Forever land-acquisition program and requiring a plan on how to improve water quality in the Indian River Lagoon watershed.
--- HB 1521, imposing restrictions on which bathrooms transgender people can use at schools and public buildings. It will require people to use bathrooms that line up with their sex assigned at birth.
--- SB 1580, establishing a right for health-care providers to opt out of providing services because of a “conscience-based objection” based on religious, moral or ethical beliefs.
--- SB 1718, toughening penalties on people who bring undocumented immigrants into Florida, requiring hospitals to submit data about whether patients are in the country legally and providing $12 million for a program that allows Florida to transport migrants to other parts of the country.
--- HB 7063, providing a wide range of tax breaks, including holding a series of sales-tax “holidays” and creating sales-tax exemptions on diapers. It also will reduce a commercial-lease tax starting in December.