During the first state Senate committee discussion on December 13 regarding a bill requiring Florida drivers who refuse alcohol breath tests to have related devices installed in their cars, a panel member asked about a potential consequence — increased administrative hearings.

Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, was referring in her question to a section of the first staff analysis on SB 260 that said the bill could cost $1.1 million dollars annually due to a need for eight additional full-time hearing officers in the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV).

Those officers would help with the “significant increase in the number of driver license review hearings that the Bureau of Administrative Review (BAR) will have to conduct,” states the analysis.