633.50  Division powers and duties; Florida State Fire College.--

(1)  The Division of State Fire Marshal of the Department of Insurance, in performing its duties related to the Florida State Fire College, specified in ss. 633.43-633.49, shall:

(a)  Enter into agreements with public or private school districts, community colleges, junior colleges, or universities to carry out its duties and responsibilities.

(b)  Review and approve budget requests for the fire college educational program.

(c)  Prepare the legislative budget request for the Florida State Fire College education program. The superintendent is responsible for all expenditures pursuant to appropriations.

(d)  Implement procedures to obtain appropriate entitlement funds from federal and state grants to supplement the annual legislative appropriation. Such funds must be used expressly for the fire college educational programs.

(e)  Develop a staffing and funding formula for the Florida State Fire College. The formula shall include differential funding levels for various types of programs, shall be based on the number of full-time equivalent students and information obtained from scheduled attendance counts taken the first day of each program, and shall provide the basis for the legislative budget request. As used in this section, a full-time equivalent student is equal to a minimum of 900 hours in a vocational program and 400 hours in a degree-seeking program. The funding formula shall be as prescribed pursuant to s. 236.081, shall include procedures to document daily attendance, and shall require that attendance records be retained for audit purposes.

(2)  Funds generated by the formula per full-time equivalent student may not exceed the level of state funding per full-time equivalent student generated through the Florida Education Finance Program or the State Community College Program Fund for students enrolled in comparable education programs provided by public school districts and community colleges. Funds appropriated for education and operational costs shall be deposited in the Fire College Trust Fund to be used solely for purposes specified in s. 633.461 and may not be transferred to any other budget entity for purposes other than education.