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2012 FPCA Legislative Report

FPCA INITIATIVE:

PUBLIC SAFETY TELECOMMUNICATOR CERTIFICATION EXEMPTION:
The 2010 Legislature enacted F.S. 401.465, to require that any person serving as a public safety telecommunicator, receive specific training and certification from the State. During that Session, an attempt was made to exempt sworn law enforcement officers who might temporarily work as a telecommunicator, from that training/certification. That effort failed.

A substantial number of law enforcement agencies throughout the state, regularly use sworn officers for interim time periods when normal telecommunicators are not available. Analysis has shown that sworn officers, beginning with basic training and through field training at their employing agency, receive training in almost all facets of the newly adopted telecommunicator training, and that requiring officers to take the new training would be costly and redundant. Sworn officers tend to know better than telecommunicators, what information is needed to respond to an emergency call.   

HB1227 - Representative Drake & SB514 - Senator Dean
Both Bills passed each Chamber, with the Senate asopting and passing the House version, which has been signed by the Governor.
Effective date is July 1, 2012.     Enrolled Bill

PUBLIC RECORDS EXEMPTION:
At least since 2003, there have been public records requests from individuals and/or organizations to law enforcement agencies, wherein the information being requested involves cellular telephone and/or pager numbers for devices issued to individual officers by an agency. Legal opinions from the Attorney Generals and multiple city attorneys to civil attorneys for citizens or groups have differed on whether this information is exempt under F.S. 119. There are many officer safety and operational interference concerns, law enforcement believes that this information is sensitive and that the release of it could impact personal safety and operational integrity.

FPCA encourages the Legislature to amend FS 119.07(3)(i) and any other part of the statute necessary, so as to clearly exempt from public record, the cellular and pager numbers of devices owned by any governmental entity, and issued to its personnel for official public safety duties.

Additionally, the date of birth of public safety employees should be included in exempt information pursuant to this statute.   

HB629 - Representatives Hooper & Williams & SB514 - Senators Oelrich & Garcia
House Bill was amended to remove the "city owned telephones and pagers", but personally owned devices were inserted. The Bill was passed. The Senate adopted the House version, which was signed by the Governor on April 24, 2012.
Effective date is October 1, 2012.     Enrolled Bill

FPCA LEGISLATIVE ISSUES OF CONCERN:

In addition to the items promulgated in the FPCA Legislative Agenda, various issues and legislative topics arise that have a profound effect on public safety and the membership of the FPCA takes a formal position either for or against the specific legislation. Among the issues for 2012, are:

FPCA SUPPORTS:

ADEQUATE FUNDING OF THE COURT SYSTEM: FPCA believes it is in the best interest of law enforcement and public safety to have an adequately funded judicial system. Published reports of the outcome of the Budgeting process indicate the Court System was short-funded by some $30 millin dollars from the previous year. Total impact will not be known for a few months.

ADEQUATE FUNDING OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM: FPCA supports and urges sufficient funding for all aspects of the juvenile justice system including diversion, assessment centers, treatment, pretrial detention, and commitment programs. BUDGET - outcome is not readily visible at this time.

ADVERTISING LOST/FOUND PROPERTY: FPCA supports amendment to section 705, Florida Statutes, to permit advertising of lost and found items on official government websites. A measure relates to this and other government advertising passed, however, it does not allow for use of websites as an alternative to print media, only an addition.

FDLE SERVICES: FPCA asks the Legislature to recognize the vitally important services which FDLE provides to state, county and local law enforcement agencies, and urges the Legislature to hold FDLE harmless in any budgetary cutbacks. Commissioner Bailey reported that FDLE was held harmless and actually received additional funding associated with additional taskings.

INTERNET CAFE'S: FPCA supports and encourages amendment of the gambling statute to more clearly define and prohibit Internet Café gambling. This issues failed. The Senate sought to allow but regulate and the House sought to ban.Work will continue on this issues in the 2013 Session.

LOUD CAR STEREO "Boom Box" INITIATIVE: FPCA believes that excessive amplified music or noise from vehicles should be regulated for multiple reasons. First, loud noise in, or emanating from, vehicles creates a public safety concern because the volume inhibits the ability of drivers and others to hear emergency vehicle sirens, the approach of trains, crossing alarms, etc.; secondly, excessive volume is known to cause hearing injury to vehicle occupants, especially children; and finally, excessive volume from vehicles affects the quality of life in all communities in which such vehicles travel.

In response to State v. Catalano, 60 So. 3d 1139 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2011 [appeal pending]), FPCA encourages the Legislature to amend FS 316.3045 by amending or clarifying any constitutionally ambiguous language to ensure that the law is enforceable, and further, to amend the penalty provisions to impose a sufficient consequence for such violations by making a first time offense a moving violation carrying a (3) point penalty to the offender's driver's license. FPCA also supports a doubled fine for a second offense within twelve months and a tripled fine for a third offense within twelve months. NO LEGISLATION FILED.

PAROLE SERVICES: FPCA supports any statutory amendment urged by the Florida Parole Commission that enhances the continued incarceration or supervision of violent felony offenders. UNKNOWN.

PAWN BROKERS AND SECOND HAND DEALERS "Kathleen's Cause": FPCA supports amending F.S. 538 and 539 to mandate pawn brokers and second hand dealers obtain a digital photograph of the person pawning or selling items, as well as the development of a statewide pawn data base. Legislation was passed which governs secondary metal recyclers, bringing them into similar control a pawn brokers. No action towards a statewide data base.

TEXTING WHILE DRIVING: FPCA supports modification to traffic statutes to provide that the act of texting while driving shall be prima facie evidence of careless driving, and may be considered evidence to support a charge of reckless driving. Multiple bills filed. None passed.

TOUCH DNA: FPCA supports an amendment to section 925.11, Florida Statutes, clarifying language relating to the types of cases law enforcement for which is required to retain evidence, and the duration of retention in each case. NO LEGISLATION FILED.

TRUST FUND DOLLARS: FPCA supports and specifically urges the Legislature to provide sufficient budgetary capability to maintain and improve advanced training to law enforcement officers. Based upon the Budget that was passed, there is no current effect to trust fund dollars.

FPCA OPPOSES:

EMPLOYEE-EMPLOYER RELATIONS: FPCA opposes, at both the State and Federal level, any legislative attempt to further restrict the local conduct of employee/employer relations issues. This would include any expansion of or mandating of collective bargaining by local governments. NO LEGISLATION FILED.

EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION: No law enforcement professional wants to knowingly help put an innocent person in prison. While eyewitness identifications can be a weak link in the process, there are some in the legal community who believe it is necessary to micromanage law enforcement investigative techniques in this realm, even though not one case of misconduct on the part of police has been presented. Law enforcement continually strives to develop and implement best practices and in light of concerns, perceived or real, have developed a set of standards agencies across the state to use while developing/updating written policies, practices and procedures for use in this critical area of investigation. These standards take into consideration the variations in agency size, resources and equipment, while maintaining consistency as to actual practice.

FPCA opposes any statutory mandate to policy, procedure and practice relating to eyewitness identification and investigation of crime. NO LEGISLATION FILED.

PENSION RELATED BILLS: FPCA opposes any legislation that further reduces pension benefits for law enforcement officers. RETIREMENT RELATED: The Legislature passed HB7079 which makes modifications to the Florida Retirement System (FRS). It was primarily a "housekeeping" measure designed to clean up and correct some of the modifications that were made in 2011 legislation that were found to be needed. It reversed, to some degree, the vesting criteria and established seperate criteria for those in the system prior to 7/1/2011 and those entering the system after that date.

RED LIGHT CAMERAS: Running red lights is a severe public safety issue across Florida. With sequencing of traffic lights to make traffic flow smoother and more quickly, and with compound intersections, the ability to simply place a police officer at the intersection to watch for violators is almost impossible. Technology has developed cameras which allow for continual monitoring and enforcement at a much lower cost impact to the governmental entity. When cameras are installed, there is an almost immediate decrease in the major T-Bone crashes, with a temporary increase in minor rear-end crashes. As citizens get used to enforcement apparatus being on-site, their behavior is modified and a decrease in the crashes as well as red light violators is noted, thus making each intersection safer. Additionally, as compliance is gained, revenues decrease, which is an expected goal.

FPCA opposes any legislation that repeals or limits the use of Red Light Cameras as a tool to enforce traffic laws and increase public safety. Multiple bills attempting to repeal FAILED.

ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES: (added as opposing on 1/23/12) HB1445 - Representative Davis & SB1886 - Senator Wise
These Bills were designed to amend F.S. 1006 as it relates to zero tolerance polices within the state school systems. Currently, all school districts have zero tolerance policies in places for almost all negative conduct by students. These Bills would have required each of the 67 districts to develop their own definitions of what constitutes "serious threat to school safety". Then, only that conduct would be reported to law enforcement. All other conduct, whether legal or illegal, but negative would be handled "in-house".

We worked with the Senate Sponsor and developed initial amendment language and continue to work with the sponsors to make the legislation effective as realtes to the ultimate goal of reducing juvenile referrals to the justice system, yet maintaining law and order. These measures failed.