Economic Prosperity & Anti-Poverty Solutions
Audit Verdict · Mixed Authority
Financial empowerment, workforce partnerships, and voluntary certification are deliverable, but binding living-wage mandates on contractors are preempted once HB 433 takes effect.
Parts deliverable. Headline promise runs into preemption, fragility, or outside control.
The Promise
Open Financial Empowerment Centers, launch a Living Wage City framework, provide worker legal aid, expand workforce pipelines, and attach community-benefit standards to incentives.
Analysis
The city can fund counseling, convene training pipelines, and condition incentives through negotiated community benefits. It cannot impose a citywide contractor wage regime outside state law.
Legislative Record
As House Ways & Means ranking member, she negotiated a permanent diaper-tax exemption into the 2023 package, but no standalone local economic-development authority changed.
Implementation Barriers
Several headline proposals depend on tools Florida has already preempted, turning them into immediate legal barriers rather than municipal implementation choices.
- Rent control and expanded tenant protections despite F.S. 125.0103 and HB 1417
- Living wage and local hiring mandates blocked by HB 433/SB 742
- Gun regulations and Citizen Review Board pledges under F.S. 790.33 and HB 601
Many pledges across the audited inventory arrive without cost estimates or recurring funding sources — even as the existing city budget is already heavily committed.
- No cost estimate for universal childcare, transit pass subsidies, or a new disability office
- No funding source for expanded CVI, legal aid, or business disruption insurance
- Ignores personnel-heavy budget: 62% of general fund is payroll and 55% goes to public safety