As Florida lawmakers debate the biggest overhaul of assisted living facilities in a generation, Gov. Rick Scott has sent a clear signal: He wants the reform movement to stay alive.

In a brief statement Tuesday, Scott said he’ll ask members of his Assisted Living Work Group to convene again this year to come up with more ways to improve conditions in the state’s 2,850 assisted living facilities, where someone dies nearly once a month from abuse or neglect.

The group, which created a blueprint for reform last year, was expected to expire without Scott’s action. “We have a duty to protect the people” in ALFs, Scott said. “While tremendous progress has been made already, we will ask the workgroup to continue to examine issues related to ALFs over the next year.”

The timing of Scott’s announcement is significant: While the Florida Senate continues to press two bills that would dramatically change how ALFs are regulated, lawmakers in the House have dragged their feet as the session reaches its mid point.

Not since lawmakers created ALFs four decades ago have they considered reforms that would so radically overhaul how the homes are set up and inspected, including some of the nation’s toughest penalties for fatal abuse or neglect.

In addition, the bills call for stripping the state’s power to make deals with homes in egregious death cases, instead imposing automatic sanctions.

The emergence of the legislation followed months of reporting by The Miami Herald that showed 70 residents had died since 2002 from abuse or neglect, while regulators were performing fewer inspections and imposing fewer penalties even on the worst offenders.

Shelisha Coleman, a spokeswoman for the Agency for Health Care Administration, said regulators have refined their inspections to focus more on the safety of residents, created new ways to monitor homes with poor track records, and vastly improved training.

The Senate’s Health Regulations and Children, Families and Elder Affairs committees both wrote comprehensive bills that would create the greatest changes in ALFs and the state’s enforcement since 1975.

Sen. Ronda Storms, a Valrico Republican who chairs the Children and Families committee and a known advocate for tougher ALF oversight, said Wednesday the bills will more than likely be merged in coming days, and then sent to the House for action. Currently, no House members have filed a companion bill — something that has worried some elder advocates.

“I have done everything I can to determine who that person is,” Storms said, referring to a prospective House sponsor. “I have not had success in finding out who that person would be.”

The lack of a House sponsor, Storms said, is a concern, because the lawmaking session already is half-finished, leaving little time for any ALF legislation to complete several committee assignments before a full vote.

“I want something to pass,” Storms said. “I really want something to pass.”

Larry Polivka, the executive director of the Claude Pepper Center who chaired the task force, said Scott’s statement this week could help boost the chances, as it appears Scott is signaling his desire that something be done.

“He supports the recommendations of the work group, and recognizes their value,” Polivka said. “It is clear that he would support legislative action on them.”

Polivka said he was “encouraged” by the governor’s statement.

“There’s a lot left to be done,” said Polivka, an expert on aging. “That’s one of the reasons we kept talking about a phase two agenda.”

Specifically, Polivka would like the group to look more deeply at the plight of Floridians with mental illness who make up about a third of ALF residents. Though the group explored how such homes are monitored, Polivka would like the state to hold them to higher standards, and ensure residents receive the psychiatric care they need to thrive.

The Herald found nearly twice the rate of abuse and neglect in ALFs catering to people with mental illness, including caretakers beating and sexually molesting residents.

State agents caught about 100 homes repeatedly using illegal restraints since 2002 — including locking people in closets, tying them with ropes and doping them illegally with powerful tranquilizers.