Florida Weekend Recap – January 30
Florida Weekend Recap – January 30
A recap of this week’s best political and policy happenings in Florida.
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
SIGTARP, the office charged with overseeing Troubled Asset Relief Program money, said that Florida has lagged in its distribution of over a billion dollars that could be used to help homeowners devastated by the financial crisis. One of the programs funded by that pool of money has only helped 31 homeowners in a year and a half, according to the report. Many Floridians are still struggling with high levels of mortgage debt, as shown by a recent RealtyTract report that found four of the nine metropolitan areas with the highest rates of underwater mortgages were in Florida. Chief Financial Jeff Atwater indicated his support for a “stress test” to instill confidence in Florida’s domestic insurers, who have faced questions about their ability to weather severe storm events. Some may find it “crude,” but Gov. Scott tried to draw energy workers who lost their jobs due to the collapse in oil prices to Florida with a new website, fuelingfloridajobs.com.
ECONOMY
Gov. Rick Scott took a razor to the state’s taxes in his new “Keep Florida Working” budget, which proposes more than $673 million in tax cuts. A year’s end review of Florida’s employment situation by the free market think tank Florida TaxWatch said that the state did well at creating jobs in the past year, adding 230,600 new private sector positions, but a report by the progressive leaning Economic Policy Institute casted doubt on how evenly those jobs distributed wealth, as it found that income grew at an average of 40 percent per year during the recovery for the top 1 percent while the bottom 99 percent saw their incomes fall by a yearly average of 7 percent. Low oil prices and weak foreign economies have buoyed the strength of the dollar against other major currencies like the euro, but that may be bad news for Florida’s all-important tourism industry as the reduced purchasing power of foreign currencies is making it more expensive for tourists to travel to the state.
EDUCATION
The University of Florida is changing the name of its records management system known as “ISIS,” because of the terrorist group with the same name. Gov. Rick Scott issued his budget recommendations, which include record numbers for public school spending. His plans include an increase to the popular Bright Futures Scholarship program to cover summer tuition costs and eliminating sales tax on college textbooks. The governor also plans to increase early learning education funding. The $1.06 billion in funding is an increase of approximately $33.5 million. Sen. Bill Montford wants to address the core issues with state standardized testing. He is drafting legislation to address superintendents’ concerns over the new tests. “If we’re going to make any changes, they have to happen quickly,” he said. The Foundation for Florida’s Future wants state lawmakers to reconsider the way teachers are evaluated and paid. CEO Patricia Levesque says teachers in subjects like art need a completely different way of being evaluated. Go Team! Florida Polytechnic, the state’s newest university, launched an initiative to pick a school mascot. The process includes a student competition and student-only voting process.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
The Army Corps of Engineers released more water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River in order to control its rising level. It marks the second time in two weeks that the corps made the decision to discharge water and is part of a new strategy of smaller, more frequent discharges instead of the more seldom yet larger releases. Gov. Rick Scott announced a 20 year, $5 billion dollar investment in Everglades’s restoration as a part of his “Keep Florida Working Budget.” Scott also said his administration is “committed to fully funding the state’s share of the restoration of the Kissimmee River and the construction of the C-43 and C-44 reservoirs over the next four years.” Florida Power & Light announced a new initiative aimed at helping the state live up to its name — the Sunshine State. FPL says it will build three new solar power plants that will ultimately add nearly 225 megawatts of new solar energy to its current 110-megawatt capacity. The Northern African python is losing its grip on South Florida. At the close of this year’s annual hunt, not a single snake was captured or killed, though a couple were spotted. The absence on this hunt and several recent ones may indicate that Florida Fish and Wildlife policies in addition to colder-than-usual temperatures are successfully constricting the snakes’ ability to grow its population.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, will again carry legislation (SB 514) to create a workgroup to study the state’s Baker Act laws. Abruzzo said the act “is in considerable need of revision” and that “there are far too many people who are caught up in a revolving door of treatment and release with no long term plan.” Florida House Speaker Steve Crisafulli said his chamber has “no plans” expand Medicaid coverage to an additional 800,000 residents during the upcoming legislative session. “We do not plan to do anything on Medicaid expansion,” Crisafulli told reporters and editors at the annual Associated Press Legislative Planning Day at the Capitol. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced his support, and possible support from other law enforcement groups, for a new medical marijuana bill filed by Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg. Gualtieri said the announcement was less of an about face on the issue but more a tacit support of a more specific and better drafted law. Advocates for e-cigarettes as a safe alternative to regular tobacco products might’ve been just blowing hot vapor. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that vapor from e-cigarettes can have a disturbingly high concentration of formaldehyde.
LAW & ORDER
The Florida Supreme Court announced that they will try to define “sexual intercourse” next week due to the case of Gary Debaun, who is arguing that he should be immune from a Florida law that prohibits knowingly engaging in intercourse while HIV positive without informing one’s partner. Debaun is arguing that Florida law defines sexual intercourse as being between men and women, not men and men. Prison health care provider Corizon was fined $22,500 after audits at several North Florida facilities found the company failed to meet contractual standards of care. Gov. Scott’s proposed budget included money to help repair what the DOC’s new secretary called a “crumbling” infrastructure, but lacked any funding for new investigators that FDLE requested to help get to the bottom of the recent spate of deaths that has plagued the system. Freshman Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, the youngest member of the House, is already making big moves by partnering with Sen. Anitere Flores to propose legislation that would create a new public-private partnership devoted to ending human trafficking.
POLITICS
Three special primaries for the Legislature were held in North Florida. Travis Hutson won the Republican primary for the Senate District 6 seat left open by the departure of John Thrasher for Florida State University. There is one less doctor in the House: Cyndi Stevenson won the Republican primary for House District 17 to replace Ronald “Doc” Renuart. Paul Renner won the Republican primary for House District 24 to replace Travis Hutson. The new leadership of the Republican Party of Florida is soliciting contributions from local county parties. As a result of the change in leadership, Senate President Andy Gardiner and Gov. Rick Scott removed at least $1.4 million from RPOF accounts. Attorneys for the Legislature submitted documents to the Florida Supreme Court saying that groups suing the state over its congressional districts used Democratic operatives to draw their own alternative maps. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she believes Gov. Rick Scott’s staff was responsible for the way Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey was removed from office without his knowledge. Scott later dismissed the notion.
PUBLIC SECTOR
A request for an investigation into the ouster of FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey has been denied by State Attorney Willie Meggs. St. Petersburg Attorney Matthew D. Weidner filed a complaint alleging that the Cabinet violated the Sunshine Law by discussing Bailey’s firing. Meggs said the accusation didn’t “ring my bell.” However, a new complaint has been filed with the Commission on Ethics by a resident of the Villages. Gov. Rick Scott is recommending the elimination of more than 1,000 state jobs as part of his FY 2015-16 budget. Scott’s budget recommendations would cut 1,017 positions, bringing the state workforce down to 113,484 positions. Most, but not all, of the positions are currently vacant, and more will become vacant over the coming months. After a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office rug was misprinted with “In Dog We Trust” instead of “In God We Trust,” the sheriff’s office decided to auction it off and donate the proceeds to Canine Estates in Palm Harbor. The total donation came to $10,150.
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