Committee adopts substitute for transportation bill, adds $10 million traffic-signal program and data reporting for local surtax use

The Senate committee adopted a substitute amendment to CS for CS for SB 462, a transportation measure, and reported the bill favorably.

Senator DeSigli, the sponsor, explained the substitute amendment. Key provisions require counties that receive charter county and regional transportation surtax proceeds to submit data on the use of those proceeds to the Office of Economic and Demographic Research. The amendment also prohibits publicly owned airports from charging certain fees for aircraft operations associated with flight training conducted by collegiate aviation programs and creates a pilot program at the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority to study alternative permitting procedures for multi-jurisdictional airports.

The amendment clarified selection procedures for single design-build firms on certain projects, allowed the Florida Department of Transportation to waive some prequalification requirements for small quick-turnaround contracts, and created a traffic-signal modernization program that would retrofit certain signals and allocated $10,000,000 annually from the State Transportation Trust Fund for that program.

The amendment removed several provisions originally in the bill: an earlier proposal to transfer a portion of sales tax revenue to the State Transportation Trust Fund, a requirement that FDOT competitively bid any contract created as part of a bid-protest settlement, and a provision repealing the Metropolitan Planning Organization Advisory Council.

After brief committee debate and a roll-call, the committee reported CS for CS for SB 462 favorably.