Lawmakers Recommend $528M for IT Projects

During a recent Florida House of Representatives IT Budget and Policy Subcommittee meeting, committee chair Rep. John Snyder, R-86, shared plans to recommend $528 million for IT projects — a decrease of 13 percent from last year.

A little more than half of that would go toward three large projects: the Agency for Health Care Administration’s (AHCA) Florida Health Care Connections (FX) project, the Department of Financial Services' (DFS) Florida PALM project and the Child Support Automated Management System, or CAMS project, led by the Department of Revenue.

During the March 19 meeting, Snyder said the subcommittee plans to recommend $161.9 million for FX with the understanding that “there are gaps that must be addressed if we are to ensure its long-term success.”

FX is a multiyear transformation project that aims to modernize the state’s current Medicaid technology via a modular approach while simultaneously improving overall agency functionality and building better connections to other data sources and programs, according to AHCA’s website.

He recommended fully funding DFS' request for PALM: $46.7 million for project-related costs and $62.2 million for agencies to ready their systems for integration.

PALM, which stands for Florida’s Planning, Accounting and Ledger Management Project, aims to streamline financial management across all state agencies by January 2026.

Last, the subcommittee recommends $31.4 million for CAMS, “which continues to proceed on schedule and within budget.”

Also discussed during the meeting were changes to recently proposed legislation, HB 369.

The bill would require specific digital content to include provenance data, which is “information that records the origin of a piece of visual or audio digital content and the history of modifications to content.”

The bill also requires artificial intelligence tool providers to make specific application tools and provenance readers available and asks social media platforms to retain and make provenance data available when needed.

However, during the meeting, bill sponsor Fiona McFarland, R-73, proposed a strike-all amendment, eliminating a pilot program for the Division of Emergency Management, removing AI-related provisions for elections and extending the bill’s effective date to July 2026.

Subcommittee members unanimously approved these changes, advancing the bill to the Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee.