Focus on Manatee: Several Chamber-backed priorities succeed during legislative session

The Manatee Chamber believes it is essential for our business community to have a voice in Tallahassee every year during the state’s legislative session. After all, how can we expect our representatives to adequately address our community needs if they do not hear from local businesses?

We place great emphasis on providing robust advocacy throughout the year, travel to the state capital to advocate the Chamber’s business priorities and continuously monitor the quality-of-life issues that impact the strength of our business environment.

Effectively conveying the Chamber’s business agenda each year to move our legislative priorities through the law-making process can be challenging. This year’s legislative session was no exception.

In the end, we realized some key successes – and disappointments – after Gov. Rick Scott used his veto power and our legislators met in a special session.

This year, the Chamber-backed priorities that succeeded include:

• Secured funding for Enterprise Florida, Visit Florida, Centerstone of Florida’s psychiatric residency program, Manatee County Government’s opioid addiction recovery peer pilot program, Rubonia stormwater and drainage improvements, and programmatic funding for programs of strategic importance at USF Sarasota-Manatee;
• Avoided legislation that would place a cap or reduce the number of students allowed in baccalaureate programs at state colleges;
• Protected the Transportation Trust Fund, securing funding for local transportation projects;
• In concert with lobbying efforts from Manatee County Government, the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to expedite the completion date of the Central Manatee Network Alternatives Analysis, an essential component in addressing traffic congestion in our urban core.

We have some unfinished business to take care of as we look to the future, including legislation that would reduce workers’ compensation insurance rates and increased funding for K-12 public schools and institutions of higher education.

After advocating for several years for a reduction in the Florida-only commercial lease tax, the legislature approved a 0.2 percent reduction this year. We view this as a start and will continue our advocacy for greater (or complete) reduction.

Last week, the Chamber hosted a Politics & Pints post-legislative session recap to allow local business members the opportunity to engage with our state legislative delegation to better understand why some laws passed and others did not, and how the process of checks and balances impacts legislation.

We believe opportunities like this, including the Chamber’s pre-legislative session Pancakes and Politics event, strengthen our community’s voice and provide our state delegation with the information they require to best represent our needs.

It is gratifying to see the engagement of both our local business community and our elected officials. The Chamber is now beginning to plan our advocacy efforts for the next legislative session with the goal of having a meaningful impact for local businesses.

This story was originally published June 25, 2017 at 8:35 AM with the headline "Focus on Manatee: Several Chamber-backed priorities succeed during legislative session."