Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved legislation to help better deliver behavioral health services.

Lawmakers approved the bill (HB 633) in late April. Tampa Republican Rep. Traci Koster sponsored the measure, with Panama City Republican Sen. Jay Trumbull backing the Senate companion (SB 1354).

Under the legislation, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) will contract for operational and financial audits of managing entities and would analyze the data provided.

Audits must include a review of business practices, personnel, financial records, compensation, services administered, the method of provider payment, expenditures, outcomes, referral patterns and referral volume, provider referral assignments, and key performance measures.

Provider network participation information for DCF’s available bed platform, the Opioid Management System, and the Agency for Health Care Administration Event Notification Service are required for audits, as well as information on provider network adequacy.

Melanie Brown Woofter, the President and CEO of the Florida Behavioral Health Association, issued a statement following Friday’s signing praising the Governor and bill sponsors for getting the measure across the finish line.

“The Governor’s unwavering commitment to behavioral health has allowed community mental health and substance use treatment providers to offer efficient and effective health care services to all Floridians, regardless of their ability to pay,” Brown Woofter said.

“We are grateful to Representative Traci Koster and Senator Jay Trumbull for their leadership and to the entire Florida Legislature for unanimously passing HB 633. The legislation centralizes reporting for behavioral health stakeholders, creating a unique opportunity for Floridians to better understand how public investments are supporting mental health services across the state. This will ultimately demonstrate the return on investment community providers generate and continue to highlight the good work providers have been doing in their communities across the state for decades.”

Per the measure, managing entities are required to compare administered services with outcomes of expenditures and add them into each audit of the entity’s expenditures and claims, including any Medicaid funding used for behavioral health services.

Claims paid by each managing entity for Medicaid recipients need to be analyzed and include recommendations to improve the transparency of the system’s performance based on metrics and criteria. Performance standards will be established by both DCF and the managing entities.

Managing entities will be required to report the numbers and percentages of high utilizers, individuals who receive outpatient services for behavioral health services, and emergency room visits.

Information on the number of individuals able to schedule an appointment within 24 hours, wait times, the incidence of medication errors in treatment plans, rate of readmission, and the number of adverse incidents such as self-harm in both in-patient and outpatient settings will also be reported.

Following the Governor’s signature, the legislation takes effect July 1.

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Ryan Nicol and Andrew Powell of Florida Politics contributed to this report.

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The Florida College System’s biggest institution just got a nice funding bump from the Legislature’s lower chamber.

In its just-released “sprinkle list,” the House will allocate $5 million to Miami Dade College (MDC), which reported awarding more than 18,000 credentials, 14,000 diplomas and 12,000 individual issuances of student financial aid in 2024 alone.

The extra, nonrecurring set-aside from the state’s general revenue fund, while surely welcome and useful, is modest compared to the school’s annual budget of $376.5 million. That includes about $205 million from the state’s general fund and Education Enhancement Trust Fund, plus student fees and other revenue streams.

No similar sprinkle list allocation came from the Senate.

The sprinkle list, as its name suggests, is an assortment of supplemental funding initiatives that each chamber of the Legislature compiles as budgeting processes near their end every year.

Items on the list typically provide small apportionments (compared to other earmarks) to regional projects and programs.

The last-minute allocation is 10 times more than MDC got in sprinkles during the process last year.

MDC has the largest undergraduate enrollment of any college or university in the country. Across its eight campuses, the college offers more than 300 educational pathways.

In September, MDC was ranked fourth among top public regional colleges by U.S. News & World Report, which also ranked the school sixth best for veterans, 10th in social mobility and 12th in best value in the South region.

MDC has operated under President Madeline Pumariega since November 2020, when the school’s Board of Trustees selected her over three other finalists.

She succeeded Rolando Montoya, who served in an interim role during a protracted search to find a permanent replacement for longtime President Eduardo Padrón.

In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a $4.9 million grant to MDC for an aircraft mechanic training program, which he said would meet a “huge demand in the state.”

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The Florida Forever program will receive $15 million from the Senate, fueling further land conservation efforts in the state. The move came after the House sought drastic cuts in the program this year.

The Senate directed the sum as part of its supplemental funding initiatives, known as the sprinkle list. That’s an assortment of projects the Legislature compiles as budgeting processes near closure to provide typically small apportionments to regional items.

Meanwhile, a Senate budget offer included specific direction to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) regarding use of funding. That document alludes to the “acquisition of lands that are partially or wholly within the Ocala to Osceola Wildlife Corridor within Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Clay, Columbia, Duval, Hamilton, Lake, Marion, Putnam, Union and Volusia counties or within a Florida Forever project boundary in Flagler, St. Johns or Nassau counties.” It said funding must be spent on projects that are part of Florida Forever’s priority list.

Florida Forever started in 2001, replacing the state’s Preservation 2000 effort, and has become one of the largest public land acquisition programs in the nation, according to DEP.

The state program has purchased more than 1 million acres of land for conservation, at a cost of roughly $3.8 billion. Just in the last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet utilized Florida Forever to help purchase 78,000 acres in North Florida. That deal was negotiated and arranged by groups including the North Florida Land Trust, but Florida Forever provided the foundation for the vast property purchase.

In November, the Governor and Cabinet used $111 million from the Florida Forever Fund to buy more than 24,000 acres to include in the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

Smaller purchases have also been funded through the program, including a purchase of 385 acres in Putnam County earlier this month.

But funding for the program fell into the sights of House budget negotiators, who sought drastic cuts while exploring tax relief instead this Session.

The $15 million just directed to the program through the Senate will come from nonrecurring general revenue. But the funding represents a fraction of what the program used to receive regularly from the Legislature.

Florida voters in 2014 approved a constitutional amendment to fund the program. Between that and the original Preservation 2000 Act, the state should be putting at least $300 million to the program each year, according to the Florida Policy Institute.

DeSantis recommended $100 million go to the program this year in his budget proposal, a substantial reduction from the more than $220 million included in the budget the year before.

But the House went into the budget process not wanting to put any money in. The Senate supplement in the sprinkle list may be the biggest source of funding the state awards this year.

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