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Functions of EDR
Forecasting
The primary mission of the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, EDR, is to provide the Florida Legislature with an independent forecasting capability.
Florida Legislative Forecasts prepared by EDR:
- Florida Economy
- Population
- General Revenue
- Transportation Revenue
- Lottery Revenues
- Gross Receipts Tax Revenues
- Ad Valorem Tax Base
- PECO Funds
- Education Enrollment
- Medicaid and AFDC Caseload
- Public Medical Assistance Trust Fund
- State Employee Health Insurance Fund (Since 1988)
- Prison Population, Supervised Caseload
- Child Welfare Programs
- Juvenile Justice Programs
EDR provides independent forecasting capabilities to the Legislature by the Office's formal participation in the consensus estimating conferences. EDR is responsible for preparing the Legislature's forecasts for use in several conferences and is, by statute, a voting member in all conferences. (There are 19 separate conferences and subconferences). Collectively, these conferences establish the budget constraints for the state of Florida and provide the basic caseload information that drives over 50 percent of the state budget.
To better understand how the consensus estimating process works in Florida, read this description on how the state's General Revenue estimate is prepared and used.
Impact Assessment
At the request of the legislative committees or other members of an estimating conference, The Office of Economic and Demographic Research, EDR, conducts impact assessments of proposed policy changes. The majority of these assessments are for tax proposals or changes in the criminal sentencing laws. In these cases, EDR's estimates are incorporated in the committee bill analysis or fiscal note. In some cases, committees will request EDR to take a particular proposal to a consensus estimating conference to obtain an impact estimate that is formally agreed to by both houses of the Legislature and by the Governor's Office.
EDR also estimates the financial yields from proposed bonding programs and, beginning in 1988, estimates the impacts of changes in the state's employee health insurance program.
Although EDR primarily serves the Legislature, it also works with Cabinet agencies and statewide commissions and tasks forces that have legislators among their membership to assess the impact of proposals they are considering submitting to the Legislature. (Governor's agencies are served by the Governor's Office of Planning and Budgeting.)
Policy Research
EDR undertakes research projects on a variety of topics at the request of legislative committees. Recent topics include: sentencing guidelines, the habitual offender statute, environmental land acquisition programs, programs for the developmentally disabled, and the impact of tourism on Florida's economy.
Research Support for Legislative Committees
In addition to undertaking specific research projects for the Legislature, EDR provides a number of services in support of the research and activities of legislative committees. Among these services are the following:
- Survey Research - Provides a number of services in connection with mailout surveys, including sampling, wording of questions, questionnaire design, and data analysis.
- Database Management - Work with committees that need to process large volumes of data in machine readable form.
- Services include dealing with data processing staff of the providers of the data, reading the data, and putting the data into a form accessible to the committee.
- Financial Analysis - Consultation on a number of financial issues including cash flow analysis, borrowing, insurance, and a variety of financial projections.
- Statistical Consulting - Assist committees on matters such as statistical tests, sampling, evaluation of research methodology and findings.
- Demographic Information - Provides demographic data and analyses.
Last Revised: September 16, 2016
