(1) The authority is authorized to fix, revise, charge and collect rates, rents, fees and charges for the use of and for the services furnished or to be furnished by each project and to contract with any person, partnership, association or corporation, or other body, public or private, in respect thereof. Such rates, rents, fees and charges shall be fixed and adjusted in respect of the aggregate of rates, rents, fees and charges from such project so as to provide funds sufficient with other revenues, if any:

(a) To pay the cost of maintaining, repairing and operating the project and each and every portion thereof, to the extent that the payment of such cost has not otherwise been adequately provided for.

(b) To pay the principal of and the interest on outstanding revenue bonds of the authority issued in respect of such project as the same shall become due and payable.

(c) To create and maintain reserves required or provided for in any resolution authorizing, or trust agreement securing, such revenue bonds of the authority.

Such rates, rents, fees and charges shall not be subject to supervision or regulation by any department, commission, board, body, bureau or agency of this state other than the authority.

(2) A sufficient amount of the revenues derived in respect of a project, except such part of such revenues as may be necessary to pay the cost of maintenance, repair and operation and to provide reserves and for renewals, replacements, extensions, enlargements and improvements as may be provided for in the resolution authorizing the issuance of any revenue bonds of the authority or in the trust agreement securing the same, shall be set aside at such regular intervals as may be provided in such resolution or trust agreement in a sinking or other similar fund which is hereby pledged to, and charged with, the payment of the principal of and the interest on such revenue bonds as the same shall become due, and the redemption price or the purchase price of bonds retired by call or purchase as therein provided. Such pledge shall be valid and binding from the time when the pledge is made; the rates, rents, fees and charges and other revenues or other moneys so pledged and thereafter received by the authority shall immediately be subject to the lien of such pledge without any physical delivery thereof or further act, and the lien of any such pledge shall be valid and binding as against all parties having claims of any kind in tort, contract or otherwise against the authority, irrespective of whether such parties have notice thereof. Neither the resolution nor any trust agreement by which a pledge is created need be filed or recorded except in the records of the authority.

(3) The use and disposition of moneys to the credit of such sinking or other similar fund shall be subject to the provisions of the resolution authorizing the issuance of such bonds or of such trust agreement. Except as may otherwise be provided in such resolution or such trust agreement, such sinking or other similar fund shall be a fund for all such revenue bonds issued to finance projects at a particular institution for higher education without distinction or priority of one over another; provided the authority in any such resolution or trust agreement may provide that such sinking or other similar fund shall be the fund for a particular project at an institution for higher education and for the revenue bonds issued to finance a particular project and may, additionally, permit and provide for the issuance of revenue bonds having a subordinate lien in respect of the security herein authorized to other revenue bonds of the authority and, in such case, the authority may create separate sinking or other similar funds in respect of such subordinate lien bonds.

History.—s. 13, ch. 69-345.