Unlicensed activities; fees; disposition.

In order to protect the public and to ensure a consumer-oriented department, it is the intent of the Legislature that vigorous enforcement of regulation for all professional activities is a state priority. All enforcement costs should be covered by professions regulated by the department. Therefore, the department shall impose, upon initial licensure and each subsequent renewal, a special fee of $5 per licensee, in addition to all other fees imposed, to fund efforts to combat unlicensed activity. However, the department may not impose this special fee on a license renewal for any profession whose unlicensed activity account balance, at the beginning of the fiscal year before the renewal, totals more than twice the total of the expenditures for unlicensed activity enforcement efforts in the preceding 2 fiscal years. This waiver applies to all licensees within the profession, and assessment of the special fee may not begin or resume until the renewal cycle subject to the waiver has ended for all of the licensees in that profession. This waiver does not apply to a profession that has a deficit in its operating account or that is projected to have such a deficit in the next 5 fiscal years. Any profession regulated by the department which offers services that are not subject to regulation when provided by an unlicensed person may use funds in its unlicensed activity account to inform the public of such situation. The board with concurrence of the department, or the department when there is no board, may earmark $5 of the current licensure fee for this purpose, if such board, or profession regulated by the department, is not in a deficit and has a reasonable cash balance. A board or profession regulated by the department may authorize the transfer of funds from the operating fund account to the unlicensed activity account of that profession if the operating fund account is not in a deficit and has a reasonable cash balance. The department shall make direct charges to this fund by profession and may not allocate indirect overhead. The department shall seek board advice regarding enforcement methods and strategies prior to expenditure of funds; however, the department may, without board advice, allocate funds to cover the costs of continuing education compliance monitoring under s. 455.2177. The department shall directly credit, by profession, revenues received from the department’s efforts to enforce licensure provisions. The department shall include all financial and statistical data resulting from unlicensed activity enforcement and from continuing education compliance monitoring as separate categories in the quarterly management report provided for in s. 455.219. The department may not charge the account of any profession for the costs incurred on behalf of any other profession. With the concurrence of the applicable board and the department, any balance that remains in an unlicensed activity account at the end of a renewal cycle may be transferred to the operating fund account of that profession.