Lawmakers Consider Creating Statewide Pawn Data Database

The Florida House of Representatives IT Budget and Policy Subcommittee met recently to discuss House Bill 1359 and the upcoming budget process for this year’s legislative session.

Filed by Rep. Kiyan Michael, R-16, HB 1359 would require the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct a $250,000 feasibility study for a statewide pawn data database.

The database “will allow law enforcement agencies in all counties in the state of Florida to access, update and share pawn data in real time free of charge and provide interoperability between different law enforcement databases to facilitate seamless communication between law enforcement agencies,” Michael said.

Michael Key, chief of police for Neptune Beach, said the database would solve a multilayer problem.

The first issue the database would address is property crimes.

“It is not a new trend to commit burglary in one jurisdiction and then sell the stolen property in another. If the law enforcement agency in Neptune Beach isn’t connected to, say, a law enforcement agent in Satellite Beach, then there’s a significant disconnect, and crimes in Florida go unsolved,” Key said.

The second issue is private industry greed, which Key explained using a string can analogy.

“State law currently says that secondhand dealers — that’s pawn shops, metal recyclers, etc. — must report all their transactions to sheriffs or police departments of whatever jurisdiction they fall in. That is one side of the can, the law enforcement entity is the other side of the string can,” he explained.

However, given the number of transactions within the state, private companies have created software solutions to serve as the intermediary or the “string between the two cans.”

“Private businesses are now claiming that the data sent between the two on their string is somehow now theirs and is a commodity for resale to other law enforcement agencies for profit,” Key said. “If another law enforcement agency needs it, but they can’t afford it, or they won’t pay it with public dollars, they proprietize that data, ensuring they hold it hostage until they receive public funds for the data that is already not theirs to begin with.”

The subcommittee unanimously voted to move the bill forward.

As for discussing the state’s budget process, committee chair Rep. John Snyder, R-86, explained the next steps for the committee and what to look out for as the House and Senate work together to submit a unified budget to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“As you know, both the House and Senate passed their respective budget bills last week, and budget conference meetings are expected to begin in about one week,” Snyder said. “In the meantime, the speaker and Senate president will work together to develop funding allocations for each budget silo and select members to serve as budget conferees.”

This year, the hosting chamber, which alternates yearly, is the Senate, meaning they will take the administrative lead by scheduling all conference committee meetings and preparing meeting packets for all legislators.

“Once the speaker and Senate president announce allocations and budget conferees, the conference process begins with negotiations at the subcommittee level,” Snyder said.

However, since the IT Budget and Policy Subcommittee is relatively new, the details of how the group will engage in the process are still being finalized.

“Subcommittees are generally afforded a few days for negotiations,” according to Snyder. “Budget items that remain undecided are assigned or bumped to [committee] chairs ... after their negotiation period ends; remaining items are bumped to the speaker and Senate president upon completion of the final conference meeting.”

After that, each chamber will work together to publish its final conference report.

“Since the Senate is the hosting chamber this year, it’s Senate Bill 2500 that will be amended with the conference report,” Snyder said. After that, “the constitution requires a 72-hour cooling off period between the time the conference report is published and when the Legislature can vote on the budget.”

As for appropriating funds for technology and IT projects, Snyder explained that while some enterprise-wide projects like Planning, Accounting and Ledger Management (PALM) and Florida Health Care Connections (FX) are relatively close in terms of funding, other projects and potential appropriations differ widely.

“The Senate’s budget includes several IT infrastructure and hardware refresh projects focused on upgrading physical systems and modernizing agency equipment,” Snyder said. “Our approach here in this subcommittee has prioritized life cycle management planning.”

Other differences between the House and the Senate are the House appropriating $15 million for the Local Government Cybersecurity Grant Program, which provides technical assistance to counties and municipalities, and $12.9 million to support IT infrastructure for the new state emergency operations center, which is currently under construction.

A full recording of Tuesday’s meeting can be found online.