Nearly a million Florida condo owners face a very important deadline at the tip of the yr. Then a law was passed in 2022 requires most owners associations in Florida File inspection reports for his or her buildings and collect money from owners to fund any needed repairs.

Condominium owners report that there are latest rules for condominiums Drive up fees and result in outrageous assessments.

The media picked up on the outrage. News article about condo owners “New building safety regulations put them in financial turmoil“and how”Bills cripple homeowners” Let readers imagine that Florida lawmakers have imposed an enormous tax on the elderly and people on fixed incomes.

This is misleading at best.

As research director on the University of Florida Bergstrom Real Estate CenterI suggest that it is crucial to place emotions aside and see what these laws are attempting to attain.

Safety inspections

The state condominium law of 2022, generally known as SB-4Dand its sequel in 2023, SB-154establish three primary requirements: licensed inspections, reporting and disclosure, and reserve funds.

Importantly, these laws aren’t tax laws that directly increase housing costs for condo owners.

However, with demands for more inspections, transparency and financing of repairs, many homeowners are facing costs well above the amounts paid previously. These latest expenses are simply more reflective of the true cost of living in an oceanfront condo.

Under the law, all buildings occupied before 1992 must complete a milestone inspection by December 31, 2024. This is an inspection of the structural integrity of the constructing by an architect or engineer.

The requirement also applies to buildings which can be no less than 25 years old and positioned inside 3 miles of the coast.

If a possible structural problem is identified through the milestone inspection, testing is required to find out whether structural repairs are needed. If that is the case, owners can have to fund these repairs without the power to waive them by vote.

If no damage is found, the association must report and publish the outcomes. This completes the request.

Prior to SB-4D, outside milestone inspections weren’t required Miami-Dade And Broward Counties. They are actually mandatory nationwide and should be reported to local authorities, all homeowners and the general public for buyer information.

Sufficient savings for repairs

The latest regulations also require constructing societies to plan and accumulate sufficient reserves to cover the prices of maintaining and replacing often worn parts of buildings akin to roofs, elevators and balconies.

History shows that most owners associations struggle to save lots of enough for repairs and maintenance to maintain their properties protected and in top condition.

“Florida has…more associations that are considered weak [in terms of funded reserves] than any other state,” Will Simons, head of Florida and Southeast Operations at Association reservesthat conducts reserve studies for condominium and community associations, told a colleague as a part of a research article.

The Champlain Towers South condominium that collapsed within the Miami suburb of Surfside in June 2021 98 people killedis just an example. Simons' company conducted a reserve study of the condominium just months before the collapse and located that the association was significantly underfunded.

The club lasted approx $706,000 in reserves As of January 2021, Association Reserves advisable that the Association construct a reserve of nearly $10.3 million to fund needed repairs. This implies that the Surfside condo association only had 6.9% of the cash it needed.

True cost of living by the ocean

More than 16,000 condominium associations, representing over 900,000 of Florida's 1.5 million condominiums, are currently affected by the brand new laws because these units are over 30 years old.

Properties which were adequately maintained and have adequate reserves for future structural repairs will only face increased disclosure of inspection reports and continued reserve funding.

Many residents, especially retired seniors, have difficulty adjusting to financing needs. In response: Gov. Ron DeSantis hints at some type of relief for owners who experience financial difficulties consequently of those regulations.

The frustration is comprehensible as current residents are being asked to concurrently fund 30 years of past disrepair while setting aside savings for the following 30 years. However, policymakers are merely setting guidelines that condo owners must have set themselves. Properties subject to significant financial shocks from SB-4D are, by definition, inadequately maintained or underfinanced.

It is very important to separate the intent of those laws from possible overreaction or fraud by condominium associations, which is an ongoing problem. House Bill 1021The law, which got here into force in June 2024, focuses on the governance of associations to administer supervision of this kind.

Concrete structures, roofs, windows and elevators near the ocean have a limited lifespan. These items should be repaired or replaced to make sure the protection of residents. The latest regulations make the actual costs of a condominium transparent for owners and buyers.

Nearly 25,000 acres (10,000 hectares) of rice are grown in Florida each summer. Agricultural area of ​​the Evergladesan area of ​​roughly 2,800 square kilometers south of Lake Okeechobee.

Farming here requires an important deal of sensitivity. The area has lost almost 1.8 metres of soil within the last century on account of Process called soil subsidence.

One option to slow this subsidence and preserve the nutrient-rich soil is to flood the world during Florida's rainy season and use the fields to grow rice. The fields are flooded with water from the adjoining canals. Once the water dries up or seeps away, the rice is harvested.

The Conversation asked Associate Professor Jehangir Bhadha, a Soil sustainability expert on the University of Florida, how the university got here to grow rice and what advantages this brings to the environment.

What is the story behind rice cultivation within the Everglades?

In the Fifties, rice was grown for a short while within the Everglades Agricultural Area, but the world was limited to about 2,000 acres (800 hectares).

Then got here the invention of a rice virus in Florida called Hoja Blanca or white leafwhich causes the plants to wither and even kill them. This virus was first discovered within the late Fifties in Colombia and Venezuela.

Rice made a comeback in Florida in 1977 after farmers within the Everglades Agricultural Area demonstrated that it grown on sugar cane fields in the course of the summer fallow period from May to August – when it is simply too hot and wet to grow vegetables in South Florida. By this time, Hoja Blanca disease was under control and recent resistant rice varieties were being developed.

In late spring and summer, greater than 20,000 hectares of fallow sugarcane land within the Everglades Agricultural Area can be found for rice cultivation. In 2023 About half of this area was planted with rice.The remaining land is either left fallow or flooded but doesn’t produce rice – a practice commonly known as “Fallow water flooding.”

On average, every hectare cultivated yields approx. 2 tons (1,800 kilograms) of rice.

What makes rice cultivation on this area so special?

Rice cultivation within the Everglades Agricultural Area doesn’t require initial fertilization with nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium since the region's soils are highly organic and nutrient-rich.

The area covers almost 450,000 acres (180,000 hectares) organic soils generally known as histosols. These soils contain as much as 80% organic matter, making them unique to the region and a vital resource for its thriving agriculture. Histosols are sometimes called bathroom or peat soils.

The Histosols of South Florida were formed over a period of several thousand years as organic material gathered faster than it could decompose within the flooded sawgrass prairies that flourished in the world south of Lake Okeechobee.

But for the reason that land here was drained for agriculture within the early twentieth century, organic material has been decomposing faster than it may possibly grow back. This is especially on account of microbially mediated oxidation, which occurs when organic material is slowly decomposed and consumed by microbes, resulting in a gradual lack of soil and a lowering of surface elevation.

The soil depth on this area varies from just a few centimeters to as much as 1.5 meters. Beneath the Histosols lies hard limestone rock that just isn’t suitable for agriculture. In many places the limestone rock is exposed on the surface or parts of it are incorporated into the soil.

What contribution does rice cultivation make to soil health there?

By flooding the fields for long periods of time, farmers suppress each the microbial activity that results in oxidation and the hatching of Pests. It also increases the water holding capability of the soilwhich allows for higher moisture retention within the drier seasons.

The improved soil health advantages the sugar cane crop and maximizes the lifespan of the soil.

The cultivation of flooded rice has also proven to be Attracting waders How great white heron, Great Egret And Glossy-headed Ibis.

What work is your team currently doing?

In the last 15 years, more rice and more varieties of rice have been grown. While in 2008 only two dominant varieties were grown on around 4,800 hectares, by 2023 there have been already greater than 10 varieties on 9,300 hectares.

To ensure a continuous supply of latest varieties, researchers and others University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciencesalong with Company: Florida Rice Growers Inc.conduct annual rice variety trials to guage recent or existing varieties in South Florida. The goal of the trials is to discover high-yielding, disease-resistant rice varieties which might be compatible with the region's subtropical climate and highly organic soils.

Every summer University of Florida IFAS Extension and the Research Faculty hold a rice field day dedicated to presenting their current research.

Florida has updated its School Safety Dashboard in April 2024 and is now probably the most comprehensive within the country. F. Chris Curran is a Professor of educational policy on the University of Florida, who collaborated with Safe schools for Alexa non-profit organization founded by Max Schachter after the murder of his son Alex Parkland massacre in 2018to publish the new edition of the dashboard. The conversation asked him how parents and schools can profit from the dashboard and what other states could learn from it.

What can this dashboard show parents about how protected a college is for his or her child?

Parents can use the Safe Schools for Alex dashboard to check safety metrics at their child's school to district and state averages, in addition to other similar schools. The dashboard covers all K-12 public schools in Florida and over 50 school safety indicators, from fights and guns to high school bus accidents. Parents can even view information concerning the school's response and resources, akin to whether school staff are trained in suicide prevention and what the ratio of counselors to students is.

By accessing this data, parents and parent-teacher associations will know what inquiries to ask their teachers and principals to assist them contribute to high school improvement plans. It can even help parents higher support their very own children at home by talking about and addressing the problems shown on the dashboard. For example, parents could use the statistics within the dashboard to confer with their children about bullying or bullying.

With quite a few school safety measures at their fingertips, parents can seek for the symptoms that meet their individual child's needs. For example, a parent whose child suffers from anxiety or depression might compare mental health resources available at different schools.

How can schools use the dashboard?

School districts and educators can see their school safety data in comparison with other schools and districts – and the way that data pertains to standardized test scores, community violence and other indicators. For example, a college might notice a growing trend in its community of scholars living in poverty or without medical health insurance and concentrate on connecting families with outside social support resources. In contrast, a college that experiences a rise in school-related incidents despite improved community indicators might as an alternative concentrate on improving school engagement and disciplinary measures.

In collaboration with Safe Schools for Alex, also for my team Training developed which uses the dashboard to begin conversations about school safety and find solutions. School leaders can use the dashboard to discover problem areas in their very own school – akin to an increasing frequency of arguments. The dashboard and training then facilitates the conversation concerning the root causes of the issue. The dashboard's resource list provides evidence-based approaches to developing and implementing solutions. For example, school leaders could discover a recent bullying prevention program to implement or discover one other school with fewer fights to achieve out to and learn from.

Could there be unintended consequences?

Unfortunately, research has shown that data dashboards can result in a Stigma towards certain schools and result in it wealthier families leave these schools. Public rankings of faculties have been linked Increase in economic, racial and academic segregation. Lower-ranking schools, in turn, may lose enrollment and resources as wealthier parents select higher-ranking schools.

For this reason, the Safe Schools for Alex dashboard deliberately avoids classifying or labeling schools as “safe” or “unsafe”. The dashboard includes a variety of indicators so educators and fogeys can avoid a simplistic view of a college as protected or not protected. While parents often need a single indicator of a college's performance, such indicators often misrepresent safety or performance, which is frequently the case somewhat point to other aspectsakin to the poverty level of the scholars served.

What does the dashboard reveal about violence in schools today?

Schools across the country have reported Student misbehavior is increasing lately. The dashboard also shows this increase. However, while a few of the increase in safety-related incidents is attributable to violence akin to fights, a big portion is attributable to non-violent incidents – particularly e-cigarettes.

The data also shows that while the variety of some incidents is increasing, government resources akin to school safety and mental health funding are also increasing. Special, government funding per student for mental health has roughly doubled $24 per student to $48 per student in Florida for the past five years. In the meantime, Funding for implementing security practices akin to hiring school cops has increased by roughly 15%.

Ultimately, the dashboard shows that there are major differences between schools and districts. Some have high rates of violence and others low; some gain weight, others shed some pounds.

What's next?

School safety is a highest priority from students, parents and educators. Just as schools have embraced the usage of Data to enhance academic instructionThe use of information to make sure school safety can also be increasing. And yet we have now it found that 1 / 4 to a 3rd of states don’t currently make school safety or discipline data publicly available.

In addition to the Florida dashboard, Safe Schools for Alex also offers dashboards for Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire And Virginia. These other dashboards are currently expanding to incorporate more data and features just like the Florida dashboard.

A lot of other states, including Georgia, have their very own dashboards, which also include extensive data points and interactive functions. And some states, akin to Kentuckyhave integrated such measures into their broader school reports.

These dashboards don't have all of the answers, but they might help parents and college leaders know what inquiries to ask and where to seek out resources to make schools safer, fairer, and more conducive to learning.

With just days until Florida's six-week abortion ban goes into effect on Wednesday, providers are rushing to perform as many abortions as possible while planning for contingencies for a future by which they must turn away hundreds of girls.

In recent weeks, clinics have expanded their hours, prioritized ultrasounds and added appointments. They have increased their patient navigation efforts and strengthened relationships with abortion fund groups just like the Florida Access Network, which offer financial and logistical support to people searching for to terminate a pregnancy.

The ban provides limited exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, maternal health and fatal fetal anomalies.

“Planned Parenthood's motto has always been 'Care, no matter what.' And we don't turn away patients. So this is a very devastating and tragic situation for our staff who have to say, 'We can't take care of you, we have to send you somewhere else,'” said Barbara Zdravecky, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida.

Patient panic

“We have registrations all around the clinic, we're talking to patients… But I imagine that come May 1st we'll have patients who’re over six weeks old and don’t know that they're not in a position to do that to get an abortion. And I feel it's hard to overstate the panic that individuals will feel,” Daniels said.

More than 84,000 abortions were performed in Florida last yr, including greater than 7,000 on women who got here from other countries, based on state data.

The six-week ban, considered one of the strictest within the country, was passed by the Legislature in 2023 and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, but was only recently declared constitutional by the state Supreme Court. The sixth week of pregnancy is about two weeks after a pregnant woman misses her first period.

Florida also requires two in-person visits no less than 24 hours apart before someone can have an abortion. Some providers say these requirements effectively discourage some people from having the procedure in any respect.

Pursue alternatives

Zdravecky and other Planned Parenthood leaders at the moment are preparing for a future by which the variety of abortions performed in Florida drops dramatically.

To compensate, the clinics will proceed to supply and expand their other services.

Clinics in Southwest and Central Florida will resume offering vasectomies and give attention to expanding access to contraception and the Plan B pill, which might be taken inside five days of unprotected sex to forestall sperm from fertilizing an egg, said Zdravecky.

Once the ban goes into effect, those that can find the funds will travel to other states. For most residents of Florida and the southeastern United States, North Carolina is the closest state where an abortion might be performed within the last 6 weeks. The closest location for an abortion after 12 weeks is Virginia or Illinois.

Many others will use the Internet to order abortion pills, either illegally or through telemedicine appointments with out-of-state doctors who can prescribe them under “shield laws” that protect them from out-of-state prosecution even in states like Florida, where Doctors who are usually not allowed to prescribe pills via telemedicine.

The pills are generally considered secure and might be taken for as much as about 10 weeks. Florida clinics can proceed to supply follow-up visits to those that received the abortion pills online.

“We want to be able to help everyone with whatever type of care we legally can to make sure they get the care they need to stay healthy,” Zdravecky said.

Florida law also prohibits people from receiving the pills by mail, however the U.S. Department of Justice decided in January 2023 that the postal service can proceed to deliver abortion pills to states where the pills are banned. This ruling supersedes state law.

Legal swamp

The law provides exceptions for rape, human trafficking and incest as much as 15 weeks of pregnancy, but requires documentation equivalent to a police report or a restraining order.

There are also exceptions for maternal health and for fetuses with a “fatal fetal anomaly,” a nonclinical term defined as a condition by which the newborn dies at birth or immediately afterward.

“I asked three lawyers: What does immediate mean? And one told me a day, one told me a week and one told me a month. How should I interpret that?” said a Central Florida abortion provider who asked to stay anonymous because she was not authorized to talk to the press.

Anyone who helps someone terminate their pregnancy in violation of the law could lose their medical license and be charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by a maximum of 5 years in prison.

“These exceptions are incredibly difficult to decipher, define and follow,” Daniels said. “Doctors and lawyers who advise us, we are afraid to make medical decisions that could put us in legal jeopardy, even when we understand that our medical decisions are based on science.”

But providers and hospitals which can be too conservative in granting exceptions also can face consequences.

In 2023, Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood refused to supply an abortion to a girl whose water had ruptured because she was past Florida's 15-week limit, although she was vulnerable to infection. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded that the hospital violated a federal law requiring it to supply emergency care and threatened to chop off a whole bunch of tens of millions of dollars in federal funding in a letter obtained by The Washington Post , if the system doesn’t take corrective motion.

AdventHealth Central Florida and Orlando Health, Central Florida's two major hospital systems, didn’t immediately respond when asked how they might determine which conditions would qualify for waivers under the six-week ban.

The fallout

Zdravecky is optimistic that Floridians will vote in November to repeal the six-week ban and protect abortion until the age at which a baby can survive outside the womb.

Even then, she said, clinics face months of legal challenges before the ban is lifted, and lots of women searching for abortions won’t have the option to have them during that point.

“It will be a very dramatic situation in the lives of Floridians. It really is a health crisis,” she said.

Planned Parenthood, meanwhile, doesn’t plan to shut clinics, Zdravecky added, although smaller independent clinics may not have the option to generate enough funding to remain open.

“Abortion services make up the majority of their business and it will be an economic burden on them if they don’t have patients and revenue while we wait and try to get the ballot initiative passed,” Zdravecky said.

Overall, abortions within the United States have increased for the reason that fall of Roe v. Wade gained weight, the The Guttmacher Institute credits increased efforts by clinics, abortion funds, support organizations and the emergence of online pill ordering networks.

But abortion falls into states where it’s restricted. The Guttmacher Institute found that in South Carolina, the variety of abortions offered within the formal health care system fell by 71% within the month after the state began enforcing a six-week abortion ban in 2023.