Florida panel advances bill to give school board members free, timely access to district records, ban NDAs

Representative Coster, sponsor of HB 1073, told the Education Administration Subcommittee that the bill would ensure individual school board members receive, without charge, the district documents and budget information necessary to carry out their duties. "They should not have to pay for the records and they should be given to them in a reasonable amount of time so that they can perform their elected duties," she said.

Proponents said the measure responds to instances where board members were asked to file public-record requests and pay for documents or were asked to accept nondisclosure agreements. Donna Brosmer, a Volusia County school board member, told the committee she had been charged for records and that district budgets were provided only in aggregated narrative form, not line-item detail. Brosmer said an NDA previously circulated in her district was later withdrawn but that three employees who refused to sign had been forced out. "Because of this bill, no employee will lose their job because they refuse to sign an NDA," she said.

Former educator Shane Story described his experience of being pushed out of a district after refusing an NDA and said he had identified dozens of state complaints related to the issue. He testified that obtaining records had been cost-prohibitive in at least one instance, citing a $3,600 fee to retrieve records he believed were relevant to oversight.

Members supportive of the bill framed it as a transparency and accountability measure. Representative Valdez and others said board members need access to information to perform due diligence; Representative Sapp invoked the state's sunshine tradition in urging approval. Several members raised concerns about chain-of-command and operational disruption if board members bypass superintendents. Representative Woodson and Representative Nixon said they worried the bill could undermine supervisory authority and open the door to board members contacting teachers or staff directly.

Coster and supporters said the bill is intended to facilitate information flow — not to empower board members to give work orders or immediately override staff priorities — and that districts would still follow administrative processes for records and requests. The sponsor acknowledged the bill contains no specific statutory deadline for "timely" delivery and said she is open to further conversations to clarify scope and limits.

After debate and public testimony, the committee voted to report the PCS for HB 1073 favorably, 15 yeas and 3 nays. The committee recorded individual roll-call responses before reporting the bill favorably.