Florida’s new laws on carrying guns, paying for school and more go into effect July 1

More school vouchers. Expanded restrictions on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity. Limits on using TikTok. Carrying guns without concealed-weapons licenses. A larger Florida State Guard.

More than 200 laws passed during the 2023 legislative session, including a record $116.5 billion budget, will take effect Saturday.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed nearly 300 bills that the Republican-controlled Legislature passed during the session. About one-third went into effect immediately or will hit the books in October or January.

Here are some of the laws that will take effect Saturday:

▪ New fiscal budget (SB 2500): The $116.5 billion budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which will run from Saturday through June 30, 2024. DeSantis vetoed $510.9 million from the budget passed by lawmakers in May.

▪ School vouchers (HB 1): Expanding taxpayer-funded vouchers to all Florida students and eliminating income-eligibility requirements.

▪ ESG (HB 3): Prohibiting government investment strategies that consider “environmental, social and governance,” or ESG, standards.

▪ Goodbye Enterprise Florida (HB 5): Eliminating Enterprise Florida, the state’s business-recruitment agency. Contracts and programs will be shifted to the Department of Economic Opportunity, which will be renamed the Department of Commerce.

▪ Affordable housing (SB 102): Making changes to try to expand affordable housing, including boosting funding for housing and rental programs, providing incentives for investment and encouraging mixed-use developments in struggling commercial areas.

▪ Wildlife corridor (SB 106): Designating $200 million to help link hiking and biking trails, which are part of the Shared-Use Nonmotorized Trail Network, to a statewide wildlife corridor.

▪ Firearm sales (SB 214): Preventing credit-card companies from tracking firearm and ammunition sales through a separate “merchant category code” at gun businesses.

▪ Prayer before football (HB 225): Allowing “opening remarks” of up to two minutes on public-address systems before high-school championship events. The change came amid a legal battle about whether a Christian school should have been able to offer a prayer over the loudspeaker before a championship football game.

▪ Apprentice tax break (SB 240): Offering tax breaks for businesses that employ apprentices or pre-apprentices.

▪ Online data (SB 262): Placing restrictions on large online companies about collecting and using consumers’ personal data.

Chinese ownership of property, access to TikTok

▪ China-based property owners (SB 264): Preventing, with some exceptions, property purchases in Florida by people from China who are not U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents.

▪ DEI in higher education (SB 266): Prohibiting colleges and universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

▪ TikTok takedown (HB 379): Prohibiting the use of the social-media platform TikTok on devices owned by school districts and through internet access provided by districts. TikTok has been controversial because of its Chinese ownership.

▪ Feminine hygiene supplies (HB 389): Allowing school districts to provide free menstrual hygiene products in schools.

▪ School board residency requirement (HB 411): Changing residency requirements for county school-board members. The bill will require board members to reside in the districts they represent by the date they take office, rather than at the time they qualify to run.

▪ School board term limits (HB 477): Imposing eight-year term limits on school-board members, down from the current 12 years.

▪ Legal fees (SB 540): Allowing “prevailing” parties to recover legal fees in challenges to local government comprehensive growth-management plan changes.

▪ Concealed weapons (HB 543): Allowing Floridians to carry guns without concealed-weapons licenses.

▪ Online auto sales (HB 637): Barring automakers from offering direct-to-consumer or online sales if their vehicles are currently sold through dealerships in the state.

▪ School bus traffic cams (SB 766): Allowing school districts to use cameras designed to capture images of drivers who illegally pass school buses.

▪ Higher ed foreign gifts (SB 846): Banning state colleges and universities and employees from accepting gifts from “foreign countries of concern” — China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.

Inspecting amusement rides

▪ Amusement ride safety (SB 902): Placing additional safety requirements on amusement rides. The bill is named after 14-year-old Tyre Sampson, who was killed when he fell from a ride last year in Orlando.

▪ Higher ed hiring (HB 931): Prohibiting colleges and universities from using “political loyalty” tests in hiring, admissions or promotions.

▪ Teachers’ rights (HB 1035): Spelling out various rights of teachers, including a right to “control and discipline” students and to challenge certain directives from school districts they believe violate state law or State Board of Education rules.

▪ Sexual orientation, gender identity in school (HB 1069): Expanding to eighth grade a 2022 law that barred instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

▪ Charter schools tax revenue (HB 1259): Requiring school districts to share portions of local property-tax revenues with charter schools.

▪ State guard expansion (HB 1285): Expanding and making permanent the Florida State Guard, which DeSantis revived last year. The state guard will expand from 400 members to 1,500 members.

▪ WDW monorail inspection, Miami-Dade expressways (HB 1305): Requiring the Department of Transportation to conduct inspections of the Walt Disney World monorail system. The requirement comes amid a long-running feud between Disney and DeSantis. This transportation bill also reestablishes the Greater Miami Expressway Agency.

▪ Spaceflight liability (SB 1318): Extending liability protections for aerospace companies if crew members are injured or killed in spaceflights.

▪ Florida lands, Indian River water (HB 1379): Directing $100 million a year from real-estate taxes to the Florida Forever land-acquisition program and requiring a plan on how to improve water quality in the Indian River Lagoon watershed.

Assigned-gender bathroom policy

▪ Gender bathroom assignments (HB 1521): Imposing restrictions on which bathrooms transgender people can use at schools and public buildings. It will require people to use bathrooms that line up with their sex assigned at birth.

▪ Conscientious objections for healthcare workers (SB 1580): Establishing a right for healthcare providers to opt out of providing services because of a “conscience-based objection” based on religious, moral or ethical beliefs.

▪ Reedy Creek do-over (SB 1604): Nullifying agreements reached by Disney and the former Reedy Creek Improvement District board. The Reedy Creek board has been replaced by a DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board.

▪ Immigration relocation, hospital care (SB 1718): Toughening penalties on people who bring undocumented immigrants into Florida, requiring hospitals to submit data about whether patients are in the country legally and providing $12 million for a program that allows Florida to transport migrants to other parts of the country.

▪ Tax breaks (HB 7063): Providing a wide range of tax breaks, including holding a series of sales-tax “holidays” and creating sales-tax exemptions on diapers. It also will reduce a commercial-lease tax starting in December.

▪ Adult entertainment age, identity (SB 7064): Increasing penalties for adult-entertainment businesses that do not verify the ages and identities of workers. The bill is designed to help curb human trafficking.