Florida Legislation Review

By Sean Roberts 12 March 2018

“Revises requirements for electronic originals & copying of certain records media; revises certain bureau names & creates new bureaus; revises service options for child transition plans; creates Florida Open Financial Statement System & authorizes CFO to choose contractors to build system; revises requirements for licensure or appointment of managing general agents under the Florida Insurance Code; revises license application process for managing general agents; revises terms of office for Florida Fire Safety Board; deletes provision for staffing and funding formula of Florida State Fire College. APPROPRIATION: $500,000.00”

  1. Every state agency and city is required to treat their annual financial report as public by default. “Each local governmental entity’s website must provide a link to the department’s website to view the entity’s annual financial report submitted to the department pursuant to this section. If the local governmental entity does not have an official website, the county government’s website must provide the required link for the local governmental entity”. “Each local governmental entity that is determined to be a reporting entity, as defined by generally accepted accounting principles, and each independent special district as defined in s. 189.012, shall submit to the department a copy of its annual financial report for the previous fiscal year in a format prescribed by the department. The annual financial report must include a list of each local governmental entity included in the report and each local governmental entity that failed to provide financial information…”

  2. XBRL format explicited defined as the local government finacial statement requirement. “amending s. 218.32, F.S.; providing legislative intent to create the Florida Open Financial Statement System; authorizing the Chief Financial Officer to choose contracts to build eXtensible Business Reporting language taxonomies; requiring that local governmental financial statements be filed in XBRL format”. “If the Chief Financial Officer deems the work products adequate, all local governmental financial statements for fiscal years ending on or after September 1, 2022, must be filed in XBRL format and must meet the validation requirements of the relevant taxonomy.” “A local government that begins filing in XBRL format may not be required to make filings in Portable Document Format”. No references to delimited formats or API.

  3. As the state is creating a single XBRL taxonomy, it will be a accounting standard for all state agencies and cities. “It is the intent of the Legislature to create the Florida Open Financial Statement System, an interactive repository for governmental financial statements.”

  4. Metadata standards will also be part of the XRBL taxonomy.

  5. Annual recommendations and bi-annual discussions to develop those recommendations is not part of this legislation. While government financial transparency is the result of this work, the ongoing improvements will likely be through additional legislation and the Chief Financial Officer.

  6. See 5

  7. The Chief Financial Officer has been funded “For the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the sum of $500,000 in nonrecurring funds is appropriated from the Insurance Regulatory Trust Fund to the Department of Financial Services to competitively procure a contract for the enhancement of the Local Government Electronic Reporting System, to include the development of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) taxonomies for state, county, municipal, and special district financial filings.”

  8. Passed the house

  9. Passed the senate

  10. Signed by Governor Rick Scott and is now part of the Florida State Statutes