The Florida Roundup - Florida Dems Chair Nikki Fried; Reshaping K-12 schools; Florida's troubled insurance market 

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

A conversation with Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, on abortion rights and free speech following her arrest during a protest; A look at legislation that would reshape Florida’s K-12 schools; Lawmakers consider a new approach to address state’s troubled insurance market

Welcome to the Florida Roundup and thanks for listening. Happy Good Friday as well. I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. And this week, two of Florida's top Democratic leaders were handcuffed and arrested in the state capitol. State Party Chair Nikki Freed and Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book were both detained in a peaceful protest Monday night over abortion. The protest in Tallahassee happened after the Florida Senate approved a bill limiting abortion in the state to six weeks of pregnancy. There

would be limited exceptions. Critics call the measure a de facto abortion ban since most women are not even aware that they're pregnant at six weeks. Now, the arrests of Freed and Book also brought up issues around the ability to hold demonstrations at the Capitol. I spoke with Nikki Freed about the protest, her arrest, abortion rights, and the issues of free speech in Florida. Here's that conversation. So let's begin by discussing this protest. We've heard conflicting reports about whether people were permitted to protest in Tallahassee about the bill restricting abortion access in Florida. Can you shed some light on that?

Yeah, you know, first of all, I think that everybody kind of knows why we're here. You know, that we have seen over the last, not even just the last month, but the last year, every single legislative session, the pulling back of our rights for reproductive health care. And so we've seen in this legislative session the radicalization of the Republican Party pushing a six-week abortion ban that is being led by Ron DeSantis. And that's unfortunate because we know that 75% of Floridians don't want this. This is an all-out ban. And so as this is going through the legislature, women across the state are trying to figure

out how to bring attention to this issue. We've seen women across the country pushing back on these egregious abortion restrictions. And so for the last couple of weeks, an organization has popped up called Occupy Tallahassee, who had been for weeks organizing protests and rallies up in Tallahassee, and had been working with locals to get permits. And first had been given permit authority from my understanding of an area behind the Capitol. That was rescinded at the last minute. The city actually had said, why don't you come and just do it in front of the city hall? They received a permit from city hall in order to

petition and to protest in front of city hall. Then last Thursday, the city actually changed some of their, I guess, regulations in front of City Hall. Again, when they're working on getting these permits, and they changed and designated the area in front of City Hall as a park, which if anybody's been to Tallahassee and knows this area, it is not a park. And they erected a sign that said that this area is only open from sunrise to sunset, which, again, if anybody knows, you walk through this area all hours of the day and night. There are restaurants around there, people walking to and from the Capitol, people living behind in areas.

So that was kind of leading up to what happened on Monday I was not there for a majority of the day received a phone call from some of these women around roughly 515 saying that there had been at this time about 18 officers showing up with riot gear to City Hall at around roughly 4.30 that day. There was probably about 30, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, about how many women were outside City Hall. By the time that I got there, the officers had already moved inside of City Hall, but were waiting.

And then they were told that by 8 o'clock, anybody who doesn't leave the premises was going to be arrested. They put up barricades and parts of the sidewalk in front of City Hall, which are completely arbitrary, making a distinction of where City Hall property ends and where the sidewalk starts completely arbitrary. sidewalk starts, completely arbitrary. And, you know, we started doing a press conference at around 745. And by the time it was done, there was about 11 of us who were sitting on the ground protesting, you know, first of all, using our First Amendment, everything was peaceful. And unfortunately, around 705, excuse me, 805, officers started coming out, 8.05, 8.10, or coming out of City Hall in which time we were arrested.

Both you and Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book were handcuffed, arrested. A viral photo of you in handcuffs has flashed around the country, highlighting the issues of abortion access in Florida and also free speech issues. They have become intertwined in the aftermath of this event. Can you speak to that? Yeah. I mean, if you think about what the purpose of the First Amendment is. It is to be able to have freedom of speech to protest against your government. It has been used at First Amendment throughout

the history of our country to fight for more rights, whether it is a woman's right to even vote, to making sure civil rights movements, to gay marriage, name the issue. Freedom of speech and the ability to protest and to rally against government policies that are infringing upon people's rights is part of who we are as Americans. And to know that I got arrested in the city of Tallahassee, in the capital of our state, protesting a ban on a women's right to choose is fundamental. These women had no place else to protest. There was, you know, for people to get attention, to put us in a park, you know, 10 to 30 miles away from the capital defeats the purpose of getting in front of our elected officials to make sure people understood that we were standing up for, again, not just us, but for

women across our state. And rest assured, this is not where it ends. I keep hearing from women all across the state say, well, I can afford to send my kids or myself to another part of our country. Rest assured that they're not stopping on the states. You're seeing it already in Washington, D.C., that if, God forbid, Ron DeSantis gets to become president of the United States and has a majority in Congress and in the Senate, this is something that they will do as a national ban.

So we are not only standing up for women and our allies here in the state of Florida, but for women's rights across the country and for our First Amendment rights to be infringed upon, that we had no place to protest and to rally against the six-week abortion ban, tells you that there is a dysfunction that is happening here in the state of Florida. Nikki Freed, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me on today. We're a little more than halfway through Florida's annual legislative session, and lawmakers have proposed sweeping changes to Florida's K-12 education system.

Yeah, that's right, Danny. And there's a lot to get into. A lot of moving parts here. So we're going to spend some time now taking a closer look at some of those education measures and where they stand. And for more on that, we're going to welcome two reporters who have been covering education issues very diligently here in Florida. We have Andrew Atterbury of Politico and Summer Brugal of the Miami Herald. Andrew and Summer, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us. Hey, happy to be here. No place I'd rather be. And that goes for you, Florida.

We want to hear from you from the peninsula to the panhandle. Maybe you've got a child in school. Are you a current or former K-12 teacher or principal? Or you just have questions? Give us a call. We're talking about educational changes in the state, big ones. It's live now, 305-995-1800 statewide, 305-995-1800, or tweet us

at Florida Roundup. And let's start our conversation about education in Florida right now with talking about teachers unions and a pair of bills advancing in Tallahassee that put huge new restrictions on public unions in general, with teachers' unions being some of the most impacted if these become law. a bill that places new restrictions on public employee unions. And this new bill, if it becomes law, would increase the required percentage of union members who pay dues from 50% to 60% for all public sector employees, with the exception of law enforcement, firefighters, and correction officers, I should say. I mean, what is this going to do to teacher unions in Florida just as in general? Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot that could happen as a result of this bill moving forward. You know, I was talking to the teachers union here in Miami, which which represents the largest school district in the state of Florida, the fourth largest in the country. And I think, you know, in kind of practical sense, you know, where it stands right now, it's about between 50 and 60 percent. So in theory, they'll have to get more teachers to to be on board with their

union. But I think it could also, you know, pose a challenge to teachers unions, especially the smaller ones across the state, if they don't reach that 60% threshold and could result in seeing teachers unions become decertified as a result. And Andrew, I'll ask this one to you. In the case of, say, you know, I'm in Miami-Dade, if United Teachers of Dade gets decertified, I mean, what happens in that situation if a teachers union loses that bargaining leverage that they have right now? That's something that a lot of teachers unions could face. According to the data that I've seen from one Senate analysis, I think there's more than 40 teachers unions last school year that were between that 50 and 60 range. So they're the ones that could be at risk of being decertified. So what you have to do, you'd have

to petition to a state board, the Public Employees Relations Commission or PERC. And there are some costs associated with that. And they may have to reshuffle the organization a bit. And sometimes you might even find new leadership because like if you don't do that after a month then you uh you lose your policy as the exclusive rep is revoked as somebody for that union uh and the the data i've seen from lawmakers they expect the impact to be so large that the state actually needs like nine hundred thousand dollars to meet staffing needs for the for that perk office for positions such as like uh election specialists and hearing. So they're expecting the impact to be pretty big for this. And Summer, I mean, if a teacher's union is decertified, I mean, teachers can't go on strike right now

because they're under these contracts. We just saw a major teacher strike in Los Angeles, for example. If that's removed, I mean, say we're going down the line right now, but I think it's worth looking ahead at where this could lead. If these unions are decertified, could that lead to teachers potentially wanting to go on strike? You know, I can't speak for teachers, but I think in talking to people, I think you could read that. talking to people, I think you could read that, you know, back in the 1960s when teachers in Florida did go on strike, you know, it was written into the Constitution that workers would be given a right to bargain. But they also included that public employees would not have the right to strike. So if unions are decertified, I think a lot of people could argue and could take away from that, that they now have the ability to strike now that they

are no longer in the kind of, or held by these rules and regulations of the union. That would be very interesting. Andrew, the Florida Education Association, the largest kind of umbrella union in the state, said this bill that we're talking about now was about revenge from Governor DeSantis and Republicans in Tallahassee. To what are they referring to when they say revenge? Oh, sure. So DeSantis, the legislature, the State Board of Education, they all have plenty of beef with teachers unions. If you want to go back a few years, the unions fought against DeSantis in court trying to prevent schools from reopening during the pandemic. Some of them supported mask mandates for students. The governor certainly didn't like that. things DeSantis and the Board of Education specifically have taken issues with how some of these union negotiations over salary increases for teachers are taking a little longer than they

would like. And if you even look before session started, DeSantis put out a statement and he called for a lot of these changes. And he said he wanted more transparency into how school unions operates. He said they were haggling, he accused them of haggling and holding teachers for their salary increases hostage and that partisan groups should not be given special privileges. So, I mean, he's made it pretty clear how he feels about unions over time. 305-995-1800 here on the Florida Roundup. We're talking about bills that would put big new restrictions on public unions in Florida. McKenna on the line. McKenna, are you a teacher, I'm told?

Go ahead. I'm actually an administrative employee at Miami-Dade County Public Schools. And it really does concern me as a former teacher and the spouse of a teacher, the fact that so many options are being taken away from teachers at this time, at a time when being a teacher is harder than it ever has been. So the real problem is the focus being on politics instead of the success of students, the success of teachers, and it really makes me concerned for both my professional future in education as well as being a young professional and considering having kids and where they might be schooled in Florida. Thanks, McKenna. You know, Summer, this issue

has come up even before these bills started advancing, concerns about retaining quality teachers in Florida over this and a lot of other issues, guns in the classroom being just one of them. What are you hearing from teachers about the pressures they're facing and whether they are going to stay in the profession? Yeah, I think that's been a topic of conversation, I mean, frankly, since the start of the school year

back in August. I've been talking to teachers throughout the year about concerns, you know, like you mentioned, like safety in the classroom and guns. But, you know, we've also seen a number of bills that really, or even laws the word is slipping me, but that kind of controls what teachers can and cannot say in the classroom. And so teachers have been kind of walking this tightrope throughout the year, trying to understand what is appropriate, what is acceptable, what isn't acceptable, what could get them potentially in trouble, or what could potentially violate new state law. And so I think that this is just another example of a concern that teachers have, at least in Miami-Dade with those that I'm talking

to and across the state about, you know, what is one more thing that they're going to have to worry about moving forward? And this is kind of just, yeah, like I said, another example. Don in Groveland, Florida. Hi, Don. How are you today? Go ahead. I'm good. How are you? Happy Good Friday. What are your thoughts? So I just don't understand the hypocrisy here. You know, the governor and the legislature are saying, well, this is what needs to be done in order to protect children and give parents the right. But I don't see the parents saying that they want this. They're not coming out and saying, oh, dissolve unions. Make it harder for teachers.

I mean, it's hard enough to get teachers as it is. Why would you come down on a system that's already weakened? Thank you for that. And by the way, Andrew Etterbury at Politico, we're getting tweets talking about the fact that this bill would affect all public sector unions in Florida, not just the teachers union. Getting close to a break, but what do you think? Union. Getting close to a break, but what do you think? Oh, yeah, totally. Teachers unions were just a big focus of this, I think, because of the way that it was framed with the governor looking at it. But yeah, and it affects a whole lot of people. And we're sitting at where this sits now. It's past the Senate, which may have come to shock

a lot of people. That's usually where some of these things don't pass. But it still has one more House committee. And so after that, it would still have another vote from the House. So we've got a while. We haven't heard this actually in the House since mid-March. So interesting to see if they take that up after the break here and when. And, you know, it's fascinating to watch this kind of legislation play out in Florida, which is, of course, a right to work state, not a state particularly friendly to unions. In other states, we're seeing the polar opposite. As just one example, in Michigan, they abolished right to work laws that have been on the books there for decades.

So when we think about states as laboratories of democracy, places where policies are workshopped and implemented, what's going on in the states around the country is reflective, honestly, of the vast polarization we are experiencing in America right now. conversation after a break because there's more education news to get into in particular the fact that if you have a school-aged child in florida they will now be eligible to get a taxpayer-funded education voucher we're going to tell you all about that in a moment and we want your calls at 305-995-1800 talking schools and school costs here on the florida roundup stay with us this is the the Florida Roundup from Florida. Public Radio will be right back. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivero in Miami.

And I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And we're continuing our discussion now with big changes coming to Florida's K-12 system of education with our guests, Andrew Atterbury of Politico and Summer Brugal of the Miami Herald. Every school-aged child in Florida will now be eligible to receive a taxpayer-funded education voucher under legislation signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis just last week. The measure takes effect on July 1st of this year. Now at the same time, another bill is moving through the legislature that could redirect potentially hundreds of millions of dollars away from traditional public schools toward charter schools. They're the latest in a series of

movements in Florida's decades-long school choice movement, one that has seen a renewed push after a coronavirus pandemic, school closures, and the governor's focus on education issues in the lead up to his much-anticipated but yet to be announced presidential bid. As always, we want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the expansion of school vouchers in Florida? Pro or con, give us a call, 305-995-1800, or tweet us at Florida Roundup. Now, Summer, this new law expands Florida's voucher system by eliminating income eligibility limits. That means if you have any child in grades 6 through 12 in the state of Florida, you can apply for this voucher money. It can go toward a private, charter home, or magnet school.

Tell us more about this and what the legislation will cost the state in terms of taxpayer money. Yeah, that's actually kind of one of the big questions that remains. There are two budget proposals right now for how this proposal would actually kind of shake out, if you will. You know, the Senate and House budgets differ pretty substantially. And I'm going to ask Andy to maybe make sure that these numbers are right. But, you know, the Senate is budgeting about $2.2 billion, and the House is projecting it will cost about $1.8 billion, but the final amount for the House budget is a little, or is yet to be finalized because the way that they are

calculating it is in the expansion as a per student amount. And so it's unknown at this point how many students will actually take advantage of the program. So the so I guess the overall cost is still kind of up in the air as of right now. Andrew, is Florida first in the nation to go statewide with no income eligibility for these kinds of vouchers? No, and that's an interesting point, because Arizona has done something similar. And that's something that Democrats in their opposition to this bill tried to talk about a lot because they even brought in some Democrats from Arizona to describe the bill there as a budget buster because they have to keep adding more money to it to meet an increased demand. But here, people are saying that they're

not worried about that because Florida has a different structure for how they do vouchers. They've already have like a lot of groundwork because they have so many different voucher programs now. And then also because they they're setting aside some some money in the budget specifically for this. I think the biggest question is going to be how many people who are already in private school that don't get a voucher will apply for some aspect of it. I think that's the biggest unknown. Right. I'm curious to get both your thoughts about that. How many families are going to apply and what that will mean for traditional public schools, Summer? Yeah. You know, as of right now, we know that about 1.3 million children receive their education from someplace other than their assigned public schools, whether that be a magnet, private or homeschooling. So we don't really know how many students are

going or how many families are going to take advantage of this program. And that's actually a critique that I've heard a lot is that, you know, will the majority of the students who end up taking advantage of this, will they already be in private schools? Will they already be families who perhaps can afford a tuition that many families can't? But yeah, I think that that remains to be one of the questions that we're trying to get answers for is just how many students from the public school system will actually take advantage of this, or how many students who are in existing private schools will be taking advantage of it? Yeah, it's 305-995-1800. Calls in just a bit. Andrew, will this mean that if you are,

like say you're a family in Jacksonville, Florida, you can apply to any school you like within the city limits uh are there any limitations on this legislation any carve outs well so not every not every school accepts these vouchers so that is one that's one thing also that separates florida from other states is that it's not going to be wide open. So that also is one thing that I'm very curious to watch going forward. Do more schools open their doors and accept vouchers? Because now that there's so many more students eligible because there aren't income caps, it would be curious to see.

Are more people thinking, yeah, why not? Why would I not want to accept some vouchers? But again, there's so many things that it's really kind of kind of a holding pattern just to see how this thing really plays out. I mean, the state between the budgets, there's there's an estimate that there's going to be 80,000 to 100,000 new vouchers pretty much next year, next school year. So so where that all filters out to you, I think, is going to be what we need to watch. 305-995-1800. Again, you can call us 305-995-1800. Chuck, calling from Newport, Richie. Thanks for calling the Florida Roundup. You're on the line. Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my call. You know, the reason I was calling is because what I really

never heard anybody talk about was the fact that parents can apply for $8,000, my understanding, for each of their students. But what kind of accountability is there for this? If parents decide, say, to, they have four or five kids, get $8,000 a piece, put $40,000 in their pocket and say, we're homeschooling kids, do they have to pass certified testing like public educators do? And what happens if they don't. Thanks for the call, Summer. I'll ask you that. I mean, there is potentially a lot of money on the line,

especially if you have a large family with a lot of school-aged children. What exactly happens with the money? I mean, does it go directly into the parents' pockets, to their bank accounts, to the schools where they want to send? Do we know any of that information? I don't think I can speak to that right now. I think it's my understanding that it would go through, you know, I'm going to hold off on speaking to that, actually. I'm going to change my mind.

Could I ask a question then, if I may? Could I ask a question then, if I may? This move is being done, as are a lot of other pieces of legislation coming through Tallahassee, against the majority of the will of most Florida residents. A new statewide poll from Mason Dixon Polling and Strategy shows 60% of Florida residents oppose this school choice expansion. What about that? That's funny because that came up recently. Somebody asked House Speaker Renner about that, and he's like, hey, look, he pointed the elections. The elections just happened, and they overwhelmingly approved the legislature we have. So they're saying they're doing what the people who picked them asked them to do. That's pretty clear.

I mean, the elections really did speak for themselves. You're right, though. There's a lot of people voicing opposition to these bills, but there's not enough Democrats to vote them down. And Republicans are basically only limited by time right now. And one of the most controversial aspects of this bill in particular is that there's no income limit. The president of the Miami-Dade

Teachers Union, Carla Hernandez-Matz, who ran as, you know, lieutenant governor with Charlie Crist, unsuccessfully, obviously, but she called this new law, quote, welfare for many wealthy parents who spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on private education and who will now use this to subsidize that education. And there has been polling that shows basically giving this taxpayer money to very, very wealthy families already sending their children to private education is not popular at all. Summer, have you heard any talk about that? I mean, that's something that's come up. Yeah, I think a lot of people, I mean, we heard testimony that's come up. Yeah, I think I think a lot of people, I mean, we heard testimony up in Tallahassee. I think the people that I've spoken to here

in Miami are concerned about what will be left of the public school system if over time, what is what a concern that people have is that money will be diverted into these and to private private institutions and away from public And away from public ones. And so I think that the biggest sentiment, the biggest concern around that is what will then be left of the public school system that has, you know, at least in Miami-Dade has seen an overall decrease in enrollment in the last couple of years, you know, greatly due to the pandemic and thus a decrease of state funding. So if we see that happen or continue to happen, you know, what, to the pandemic and thus a decrease of state funding. So if we see that happen or continue to happen, you know, what what will be left of of I think some people have used

the word, you know, shell of a public school system. How will their kids fare? And yeah, and I think that that that's kind of the biggest concern that I keep hearing from parents. Terry tweets the floor to round up this voucher system expansion is all wrong public education's melting pot is at the heart of democracy what a giveaway to the wealthy wake up citizens he says let us know your thoughts 305 995 1800 John in Winter Springs hi John what are Hi. So I heard news on Arizona regarding the expansion on the voucher program, and then there were some reports that there was little to no oversight of how those funds were being used, resulting in actually some investigations that had to do with some sort of, you know, not the idealistic education that was being homeschooled, but through use of their funds.

And I know these are extremist examples, but I guess my concern is with any type of disbursement of funding like this, what oversight is there to guarantee that our kids are receiving quality education? Because if you go outside the school district or the school board's boundaries, is there anyone that can actually make sure that at the private schools they're receiving the type of education they should? And then I guess... Yeah, thanks for that. And Andrew, I mean, that's been a concern for a while in Florida when it comes to oversight of schools that aren't held to the same standards as traditional public schools. At the same time, of course, proponents of school choice say they can sometimes get a better education if they have more choices available. But what about oversight? sometimes get a better education if they have more choices available. But what about oversight?

Sure. And this boils down to right now what's going on in Florida is it's all about parents. This is saying, lawmakers are saying, we think parents know well enough what their kids are going to be learning at these schools. We trust these parents to vet these schools and this curriculum and what they teach. And so with the homeschooling portion of this, they did add some changes to it. And so, and they added some, a little bit of oversight where they have to do some things with the scholarship funding organizations. So, because there were some, even some concerns from homeschooling parents, because people who homeschool, they don't want the state attachment. That's the reason they homeschool. So they do have to do some things like work with an SFO and take like a norm reference test or a state test and keep up some paperwork with the state.

And they even changed the name of this is for like the pilot part of it where there's like 20,000 students. They don't even call it homeschooling. They call it like a personalized education plan, I believe, or something like that. But as far as oversight, the argument Republicans make is this bill was not about adding oversight on private schools. It's about giving people more choices. So they weren't trying to add regulations to private schools. It really a lot of this really does place a lot of the onus on the parents to do their homework and make sure they know what they're getting into. And you're listening to circle back to it, you know, and also what Andrew was talking about, like parents choice, school choice. There's a lot of debate around them, but would someone go about actually trying to get in, get their children enrolled to one of these schools and taking advantage of these vouchers? Yeah. So to use the money for these vouchers, you have to select a private school that one actually qualifies and is among the schools that accepts these vouchers. And then

the process they have to meet with school officials to review all the application policies, the expectations. They also need to apply for one of the scholarship funding or through the scholarship funding organizations that will administer this program such as Step Up for Students. So and then these groups will accept these applications and determine whether whether or not a family or you know, their student or students are eligible to to accept this. That's kind of the process. Okay, a listener tweets, the money needs to follow the students so that if a student returns

to public school that money follows them. No more charter schools sending kids back to their homeschool and keeping the funds. Mark in Tampa. Hello, Mark. You're on the radio. Yes, hi. I just had a question. What does this do to sports programs? I mean, there are, back in the day, it used to go to like a CYO type thing to play, unquote better sports. I mean, are we going to have super schools in the

private or public sector for that matter, where kids can go anywhere and we'll have these super schools and there'll be no competition. We'll have the power schools in football, baseball, and so on. I don't see that as being fair. Thank you, Mark. Andrew, can you speak to sports? That really has not come up much in this whole thing at all, sports-wise. There are some bills moving that do widen eligibility for certain schools, like private schools and some of the other smaller schools, to play certain sports against certain people. But yeah, I haven't heard that come up as an issue, but it could be something to watch for sure. And Summer, any thoughts on that? There are some schools that do recruiting for baseball programs, say. Is this going to give them a leg up potentially?

I mean, I don't think I could speak to that. I think what Andy said is accurate. I think it could be something to watch, but it definitely, I haven't heard it really come up in any concerns that parents have or any sort of critiques of the now law. We'll keep our eye on that. Again, the number is 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Sandra calling from Tallahassee.

Thanks for calling the Florida Roundup. You're on. Hi. Actually, my comment is more about the unions. Hi. Actually, my comment is more about the unions. But I look at it almost as sexual discrimination because the schools, the majority of teachers are female. And the other unions that are excluded are dominated by males. So how is that not looked at that way?

Got it. Thank you. We have another Sandra calling, actually. This one is calling from Tallahassee, and we have Sandra. Thanks for calling. You're on the Florida Roundup. Hi. I'm a senior. I've never had children. I've lived in Florida all my life and I have paid my taxes I'm concerned that my taxes are going to fund private schools and wealthy persons will I get a tax rebate?

A little humor from our listener Sandra in Tallahassee Alright we're almost out of time A little humor from our listener Sandra in Tallahassee. All right. We're almost out of time. Summer, this is law. This is happening. And so any other information you can share with families that want to learn more? Yeah, I mean, I think if they want to learn more, they can definitely. I mean, we've done extensive reporting on it at the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times, Andy up at Politico, I think, ask the questions to their local school districts.

And they could always reach out to us if they have any questions. Well, thank you both uh but we have um andrew with politico and summer brugal of the miami herald um there's a lot to talk about with education this is a multi-pronged issue ongoing um sure is yeah thank you both so much and is still to come why insurance rates in florida are going sky high and what's being done about it on the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. Florida lawmakers now say they want to crack down on bad actors in the

state's troubled property insurance industry. And now they're moving quickly to send a new proposal to the governor's desk on that. That's right. Now, the push comes just a few weeks after former President Donald Trump accused Governor DeSantis of bailing out the politically powerful insurance companies. He said the governor had crushed homeowners. His words following Hurricane Ian. So what does this bill look like and will it help stave off rapidly spiking insurance rates for Florida homeowners? 305-995-1800 as we welcome Lawrence Maurer of the Tampa Bay Times. Hey, Lawrence. Hey, thanks for having me. All right.

So Florida's troubles with its shaky property insurance market are not new. But what is new with the urgency in Tallahassee and what's being done here to try to get some relief? Yeah, this is kind of a shift from the last few years of of handling the insurance crisis in Tallahassee. Basically, they've been kind of giving insurance companies what they want. And now the pendulum is kind of swinging back a little bit. This week, they introduced a bill literally called insurer accountability, that will, you know, basically increase fines for insurance companies for bad

behavior. They'll have to, insurance companies will have to report more information to the state and they'll have to follow best practices for handling claims. Those are, it does a bunch of other stuff, but those are kind of the big ones. And will this make a difference? Because of course, lawmakers have held special sessions to try to deal with this problem, and it hasn't really solved the problem yet. No, it hasn't solved the problem yet. This remains to be seen. You know, there's been a lot of complaints against insurance companies for how they handle claims after storms. Frankly, a lot of domestic insurance companies, these are, Florida's unusual in that we don't have state farms and all states dominating the insurance market here. We got

a lot of small domestic companies and a lot of these companies farm out their claims handling to contractors and such. And there's been a lot of complaints about how those companies perform after storms. There's been a lot of complaints about how fast they are to respond to claims. And so maybe boosting the claims handling practices will result in maybe fewer complaints, fewer lawsuits might be good for everyone. It kind of remains to be seen. fewer lawsuits might be good for everyone. It kind of remains to be seen. And Lawrence, you know, last year, as Melissa mentioned, the Florida lawmakers held two special sessions trying to tackle this problem. Lawmakers then were pretty explicit that all those efforts would not bring the prices down on insurance immediately, but that it would take time. But since then, there was a big report in

the Washington Post about how homeowners were getting shortchanged from insurance companies after being hit by Hurricane Ian, and then very direct and blunt criticism from former President Trump about, you know, basically accusing Governor DeSantis of bailing out insurance companies, giving them whatever they want. Is there any sense that that kind of criticism is actually pushing this ahead? Because they've staved off this kind of accountability in the last couple of years, if you will. Yeah, I think so. There has been quite a bit of talk about the Washington Post story. But, you know, those were allegations that were made back in November, or excuse me, December.

Those adjusters went public in a Senate committee hearing in December talking about this. And in fact, I've learned that they actually made these allegations years ago about these same companies. Some of these adjusters have and so you didn't see any response from lawmakers to that or really to state regulators to that and i do think that you know this is kind of a populist issue this is an issue that is squeezing everyone in the state regardless of uh regardless of whether you're a republican or a democrat and insurance companies have they they are a very very powerful constituency in tallahassee they donate a lot of money to lawmakers and the governor and to the state's chief financial officer jimmy patronus who regulates uh in part insurance companies and so yes this is kind of a

a little bit of a correction in the other direction that um is definitely in response i think to some of this stuff and you know it's three go ahead no i was just gonna say um we all know pocketbook issues don't lie and they're not necessarily partisan. That's right. Yes. And Lawrence, can you just tell us a little bit about, you know, you mentioned it briefly, but just like a breakdown of some of the key provisions in this? Is it more, you know, people in positions in the state where they're doing oversight, the data collection? Can you just fill us in a little bit more? Yeah, so fines would go up quite a bit from a maximum of $20,000 to $100,000 for non-willful violations, and a maximum of $200,000 to $1

million for willful violations. You know, regulators would have basically broader authority to conduct examinations into insurance company conduct. Insurance companies would be prohibited from paying bonuses to officers and directors while an insurance company is impaired or insolvent. But a lot of this is really, it remains to be seen how regulators will actually carry this stuff out. There is more staffing for the Department of Financial Services and the Office of Insurance Regulation. But again, Florida is the only state that actually splits insurance regulation between two different entities, DFS and the Office of Insurance Regulation. And that, we've seen this play out where it allows one entity to kind of pass the buck to the other one and back and forth. And that's something that's not going to be resolved here. And I don't see that problem going away, basically. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio as we speak with Lawrence Maurer of the Tampa Bay Times about yet another effort to try to make insurance less unaffordable in Florida.

Lawrence, you know, I saw a comment recently from Jeff Brandes. He's a former Republican state senator. He criticized the legislation. He called it the Citizen Supernova Act. That's the state's insurer of last resort. He says it will just make citizens bigger and will do nothing to reduce rates. At the same time, as we're seeing more insurers actually leave the state, how big a concern is this,

leave the state. How big a concern is this, that these efforts to keep trying to stabilize the market are up against forces that may be larger than what legislators are able to bring to bear in their toolbox? Well, you know, Senator Brandis, I mean, he's the one who's been following this issue probably more closely than just about anyone else in the legislature. Of course, he's not there anymore. But his complaints, I mean, privately insurance companies and their lobbyists, at least for the bigger, healthier companies, have really not many problems with this bill. Jeff Brandes kind of represents the view of the small domestic insurance companies. And, you know, it's hard to say how much of a long-term effect this stuff will have because it doesn't really resolve some of the major structural problems in Florida's insurance market, which is that, you know, we have a lot of small insurance companies in this state that are

usually based here. And when times are good, when there's no storms, these companies make a ton of money. They're highly, highly profitable. And in fact, CEOs for some of these companies for between 2005 and 2017, when there were no storms hitting the state, were making more than the CEOs of State Farm and Allstate. I mean, literally these people overseeing a couple hundred thousand policies in Florida were making millions more than the CEOs of State Farm when they're covering, you know, hundreds of millions of policies. Wow, that lays it out, doesn't it? Exactly. So what has happened is those companies make a lot of money in the good years. And when storms hit, they have no money to pay out claims, okay?

Things get really tight. The cost of reinsurance goes up. You know, there's all these other factors that happen. I don't, you know, we saw the same kind of crisis right now back in 2006, 2007 after there were a bunch of storms. And I don't see this structural problem going away. You're still going to have a lot of small insurance companies. Things will stabilize. They are kind of reducing lawsuits that will help. They are kind of reducing lawsuits that will help. But I don't see the basic problems in Florida's market going away. This is just going to kind of probably stave things off until we have, you know, another series of storms. Which we can expect more and more larger and frequent storms.

There are those who've been called doomsdayers, but some analysts that have looked at this have said the day will come when you simply cannot underwrite a 30-year mortgage in the state of Florida. Do you agree with that or not? I don't know. I mean, yeah, you'd be able to if you're willing to spend enough money for it. But, you know, there are some solutions. I wrote about an idea that was proposed literally back at the old insurance crisis, back in 2006, 2007, about, you know, creating a windstorm catastrophe pool. Basically, instead of paying a domestic insurance company or any other insurance company in Florida for hurricane coverage, you would pay the state.

And the state would basically stock all this money away, build up literally a huge $85 plus billion surplus, which would be enough to pay out for storms. And that's an idea that's out there that lawmakers have not really looked at. But this was an idea that 15 years ago, they said, hey, this is viable. This is not unrealistic. And it's a long term, it would be a long term solution. So there are solutions out there that could work. Will, is there the political capital in Tallahassee? I mean, what killed it last time is that the domestic insurance companies hated it. Lawrence Maurer with the Tampa Bay Times. Thank you so much for joining us.

And thanks for listening, everyone. The Florida Roundup is produced by WJCT Public Media in Jacksonville and WLRN Public Media in Miami. Heather Schatz, Bridget O'Brien, and Natu Tway are producers. Brendan Rivers is our associate producer. Good luck in your new ventures, Brendan. WLRN's vice president of radio and our technical director is Peter Mayers. Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Isabella Da Silva.

Richard Ives answers the phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. I'm Danny Rivero. I'm Melissa Ross. Thanks for being with us. We'll be back next Friday. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.