The bill establishes a new section in Florida law, specifically s. 288.12267, which defines and regulates large-scale county destination marketing organizations. These organizations are defined as those with an annual operating budget of $5 million or more. The bill mandates that such organizations must register with the Department of State, which will maintain a directory of these organizations on its website. Additionally, the bill requires a one-to-one match of private to public contributions to fund these organizations, detailing the types of contributions that qualify as private funding and outlining the documentation requirements for these contributions.
Furthermore, the bill stipulates that if a large-scale county destination marketing organization fails to meet the one-to-one matching requirement, it must revert any unmatched public contributions back to the corresponding counties or municipalities by June 30 of each fiscal year. This ensures accountability and proper allocation of public funds. The act is set to take effect on July 1, 2025.