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Senate committee approves bill letting IHMC form nonprofit subsidiaries; amendment blocks UWF board chair from involvement
Summary
The Senate Committee on Education Postsecondary voted to report favorably on a committee substitute for Senate Bill 312, allowing the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition to establish nonprofit subsidiaries, and adopted an amendment preventing the current University of West Florida board chair from participating in the organization.
The Senate Committee on Education Postsecondary voted to report favorably on a committee substitute for Senate Bill 312, which allows the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition to create nonprofit subsidiaries and clarifies reporting and affiliation authority, committee members said during a meeting of the panel.
Senator Harrell, who explained the measure, said the substitute largely redrafts the earlier bill but keeps its core elements. “What senate bill 312 does is really, relates to the the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, and it really allows them to create a various subsidiaries that are approved by the board of directors ... clarifies that these subsidiaries have to be nonprofit ... requires reporting by the board rather than the University of West Florida ... and it grants subsidiaries the authority to enter into affiliation agreements,” Harrell said.
Committee debate focused mainly on an amendment to the amendment offered by Senator Fine that would explicitly bar the current chairman of the University of West Florida board of trustees from having any role with the institute or its subsidiaries. Senator Fine described the change as consistent with a previously offered friendly amendment and framed it as removing a specific individual from involvement: “...make clear that the current, chairman of the University of West Florida board of of trustees ... would not have anything to do with this organization,” he said. In closing, Fine said that the chairman had “no business being in education” and added, “he lives in Idaho, and hopefully, he will stay there.”
The committee adopted Senator Fine’s amendment by voice vote, then approved the main amendment and the committee substitute. After Senator Harrell closed on the bill as amended, the committee called the roll; senators recorded affirmative votes and the committee reported CCS for SB 312 favorably. The chair then passed the gavel to Chair Simon to continue the agenda.
The bill as described in committee allows the institute to form nonprofit subsidiaries, requires the institute’s board to file the required reports (rather than the University of West Florida), and authorizes subsidiaries to enter affiliation agreements. The committee removed an earlier amendment adopted at a prior meeting (barcode 633286) as out of order during this session. No fiscal impact estimates or further implementing details were provided in committee testimony.
The measure moves forward reported favorably from the committee; the next steps and floor timing were not specified at the meeting.
