SB 1554 — Florida First Responder and Florida Public Safety Act

• Requires all county-level first responder agencies to operate under a unified 911 call center by July 1, 2029, integrated under the sheriff (with sheriff opt-out provisions allowing regional alternatives), mandates closest-unit dispatching regardless of jurisdiction, and requires agencies to sign memoranda of understanding by July 1, 2026

• Establishes a Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Unit within the Department of Law Enforcement consisting of seven regionally deployed teams to proactively address terrorist threats, foreign intelligence collection, and insider threat actors

• Creates a Florida Department of Public Safety Consolidation Task Force to plan the merger of FDLE, Florida Highway Patrol, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission law enforcement, and Capitol Police into a single department, with a report due by July 1, 2026

• Prohibits employment discrimination against first responders (including on DEI-related grounds), expands the definition of "first responder" to include prosecutors, crime scene technicians, and criminal court judges/clerks, and allows civil actions with compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorney fees

• Creates the Florida Medal of Valor and Florida Blue/Red Heart Medal for first responders, requires resilience training for law enforcement officers, exempts former intelligence/counterintelligence officers with 5+ years of service from basic recruit training, and directs FDLE to study hurricane-hardened public safety operations centers with a report due by July 1, 2026