By: Black Chronicle News Service
The Florida Justice Reform Institute opposed the bill. It said the bill would have increased taxes because local governments either would have been forced to raise taxes or cut services to absorb the costs of the cap increases.
“While the bill’s proponents have characterized it as a measured update to Florida’s sovereign immunity framework, in actuality the legislation will function as a hidden tax increase on Florida’s families and businesses, will invite a surge of litigation against government entities and is wholly unnecessary given existing mechanisms for compensating plaintiffs injured by governmental entities and employees,” FJRI President William Large wrote in April to DeSantis urging the veto. “HB 145 is a tax increase. … HB 145 will increase litigation. … HB 145 will increase health care costs.
In a letter dated June 9, the FJRI also highlighted how HB 145 was passed before lawmakers understood how pressing property tax reform would soon have on local governments and their ability to absorb the additional caps while also adjusting to the new fiscal constraints under Amendment 3 if it were to pass.
“HB 145 was passed before the Legislature knew there would be a special session on tax reform,” Large wrote last month. “We do not believe the Legislature understood, when it passed HB 145, how pressing tax reform would soon become for local governments.
“That new fiscal context matters. Whatever the merits of HB 145 in isolation, now is not the time to increase sovereign immunity limits as cities and counties attempt to absorb the impacts of tax reform that will reduce their coffers.”
