Terms Used In Florida Statutes 252.391

  • Disaster: means any natural, technological, or civil emergency that causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to result in a declaration of a state of emergency by a county, the Governor, or the President of the United States. See Florida Statutes 252.34
  • Emergency: means any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether natural, technological, or manmade, in war or in peace, which results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property. See Florida Statutes 252.34
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.

(1) As used in this section, the term “local governmental entity” means a county, municipality, or district school board.
(2) Each local governmental entity is encouraged to develop an emergency financial plan for major natural disasters that may impact its jurisdiction. Disasters include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and wildfires.
(3) Each emergency financial plan should be based on the likely frequency of the disaster‘s occurrence. The financial plan should include a calculation of the costs for the natural disaster event and a determination of the financial resources available to the local governmental entity. If insufficient funds are available to address the disaster event, the emergency financial plan should identify strategies to close the gap between the disaster event costs and the local governmental entity’s financial capacity. Such strategies may include rainy day funds, reprioritizing its annual budget, and borrowing.
(4) Local governmental entities should annually review their emergency financial plans to address changes in conditions.