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The state’s largest power company is seeking a 30 percent rate increase.

Florida Power and Light began making its case to the Florida Public Service Commission Monday. FPL provides electricity to 4.5 million households. The company hasn’t had a rate hike since 1985 and has the lowest prices in the state. Still, with double digit unemployment and thousands of Floridians losing their homes to foreclosure, now may not be the best time to ask for a rate increase. FPL Spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said with the falling cost of natural gas, customers will actually see a rate decrease, even if the company’s request is approved.

“We are mindful of the difficult economy, but the fact is that the bill is actually expected to go down starting in January so there has been a decrease in fuel cost and its also due to the efficiency improvements,” said Anderson.

FPL says it is now producing more power while using less fuel. Money from the increase would be used to further the company’s efficiency efforts. Attorney General Bill McCollum and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, both gubernatorial candidates, are opposing the rate hike request.

Several hundred thousand Florida college students returned to campuses today.  As Mike Vasilinda tells us, in addition to books the students were greeted with something new.

FSU and other state universities also have plans to ask students to use face masks if they are coughing, or are sitting next to someone who has a cough. The schools also plan to use Facebook, Twitter, and the big score board at football games to get the word out to practice sanitary behavior.

Dozens of hand sanitizing stations are now in place on college campuses across the state. At the FSU library, students walked by the station by the hundreds without stopping. Just when you thought one would, they moved on. Kelli Wheeler missed it completely.

“You walked by without using that hand sanitizer. Are you worried about Swine Flu?”

“Not too worried about it, no,” Wheeler said.

Did you even know it was there?

“Not really,” she said.

To her credit, Kelli has hand sanitizer in her purse. Each of the 11 state universities is coordinating education and communication messaging.

“So we can let people know this is not new artwork,” FSU Health Center Director Lesley Sacher said. “Not like a statue that’s there for your viewing pleasure. It’s something to be used.”

For campus health officials, it is a question of when, not if, someone comes down with the H1N1 virus.

This stand and about 2,000 doses of the hand cleaner cost about 130 dollars. The problem is there aren’t enough of them to go around.

Suppliers can’t deliver enough of the sanitizing stands. Refills are already sold out. While most students are walking by, that is likely to change when the first case of swine flu hits a campus.  Health officials say they don’t know how much sanitizer they’ll go through, but even in a tight budget year, they vow to keep the stands supplied.

FSU and other state universities also have plans to ask students to use face masks if they are coughing, or are sitting next to someone who has a cough. The schools also plan to use Facebook, Twitter, and the big score board at football games to get the word out to practice sanitary behavior.

The self-proclaimed fiscally conservative Republican Party of Florida is catching heat over 3.6 million dollars charged on credit cards given to its elected officials. Embattled Representative Ray Sansom racked up 173-thousand dollars on his card alone. As Whitney Ray tells us, the news of the extravagant spending isn’t sitting well with party donors.

Food, flowers, and airfare for his daughter are just a few things former house speaker Ray Sansom charged on a credit card given to him by the Republican Party of Florida. Sansom racked up 173-thousand dollars in charges on the card. Party donor and former Republican lawmaker Ken Plante is upset at the way the money was spent.

“When you read through it, there are some things that maybe you say, okay, I hope he can justify these things. There’s an awful lot of them that are going to be pretty hard to justify,” said Plante.

The laundry list of purchases was uncovered during a criminal investigation of Sansom. The former house speaker is facing charges for setting aside six million state dollars to build an airplane hanger for a political contributor. The Republican Party of Florida refused to discuss the spending, citing the ongoing Sansom case and its own confidentiality policy, as the reasons.

Sansom isn’t the only Republican politician with a party card. Over an 18 month period Republicans racked up 3.6 million dollars in charges. The state Democratic Party doesn’t issue cards to its members. Chairwoman Karen Thurman said she tells her donors how their money is being used.

“I’m very thorough in making sure they understand and appreciate what I am going to spend my dollars on because by the way, they are not my dollars,” said Thurman.

State Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer says he’s also willing to tell contributors how donations are being spent. Greer says he’s just a phone call away.

Since word of Sansom’s spending began to circulate two state Republican senators have given their credit cards back to the party.

The Florida Highway Patrol will be looking for drivers who aren’t following the state’s move over law.

When police or emergency workers are parked on the side of the road, drivers are required to move to the outside lane and slow to 20 miles below the speed limit. Florida Highway Patrol Captain Mark Welch said seven out of every 10 drivers don’t know the about law.

“Our members are going to be out specifically looking for people who violate the move over law, to raise awareness to this important lifesaving law, that helps protect the emergency workers out on our highways,” said Welch.

The fine for not following the move over law is 60 dollars, but with added court fees the cost can get as high as 160 dollars.

Florida’s unemployment remained constant last month at 10.7 percent, which is the highest it has been since October 1975.  Fewer jobs were lost last month, but fewer people are looking for work and when they are, they are facing tough competition.

The Capital Area Community Action agency helps people in trouble. With almost a million people out of work, Director Dot Inman Johnson says business is booming.

“Their mortgage payment is due and they can’t pay it, or they are about to be evicted because they can’t pay their rent, they are directed to us”.

When the agency advertised for a receptionist and a teacher, Johnson says the agency was flooded with applications.

“We have good applicants to choose from among, because so many people are out there looking for jobs”.

The state web site, Employ Florida lists 120 thousand active jobs. Brandt Information Services posted a highly technical job and advertised it for just two days. Information consultant John McGurk says applications were running twenty percent higher than a year ago.

“We got enough applicants, to be blunt about it. You can only interview so many people before you run out of quality”.

What the unemployment numbers aren’t counting are all those people who have gotten frustrated and just stopped looking for work. 10 thousand dropped out of the job hunt last month alone. State economist Rebecca Rust says higher than usual unemployment will be the norm for awhile.

“The unemployment rate will remain relatively high. It is not expected to drop below six percent till the fiscal year 2018″, says Rust.

The jobless rate is expected to peak at 11 percent but not until the middle of next year.

50 thousand people have dropped out of the workforce since the beginning of the year.

But 987,000 Floridians still out of work

Read the release herejuly-unemployment

The state is almost out of money to pay unemployment benefits to thousands of jobless Floridians. 650,000 Floridians are receiving unemployment pay. As early as Monday the fund to pay claims could be at zero. As Whitney Ray tells us, once the fund is dry the state will have to borrow money to pay claims.

The state has exhausted its ability to pay unemployment claims. Early next week the federal government will have to pump millions of dollars into the state’s unemployment trust fund; money that will eventually have to be paid back. The loan will be interest free through 2010, but the debt could reach a billion dollars or higher, forcing the state to pay millions in interest alone.

It won’t just be federal dollars keeping the fund in the black. The unemployment tax on businesses will go up January 1st. Businesses will have to pay unemployment taxes on the first 8,500 dollars of each employee’s salary; before only the first 7,000 was taxable. The Florida Institute of CPA’s says the tax amount could go up even more to pay back the loan.

“We do anticipate a rate increase, but we can’t quantify it at this point. Primarily because we don’t know the length of the recession, we don’t know how many employees will be remaining in the state after the end of the recession,” said Vicki Meyer, a spokeswoman for the FICPA.

Even though the state is out of money, people receiving benefits won’t notice. Checks will still go out as scheduled. On January 1st, 2008 the state’s unemployment compensation trust fund had a balance over two Billion dollars. As of Wednesday the fund was down to just 82 Million.

Thursday at the state capitol, anti-death penalty advocates gathered to remember John Richard Marek and his victim.

Marek was executed Wednesday for the 1983 rape and murder of a 45 year-old mother of two. The peaceful protesters prayed and sang hymns. Sheila Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the Florida Catholic Coalition, said the anti-death penalty movement is gaining support because of the high cost of the capitol punishment process.

“As we move forward I think that there is going to continue to people who speak out about the use of the death penalty, not just because of moral reasons, which is where we are, but also for the financial reasons. I think people are finding it is an expensive proposition,” said Hopkins.

The state spends 50 million dollars a year on average to execute two inmates.

Florida voters consider town hall protests patriotic and are giving the president his lowest approval rating in since he took office, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday.

47 percent of people polled say President Barack Obama is doing a good job, down from 58 percent in June. Florida voters support creating a government health insurance plan nearly six to one, but Pollster Peter Brown says respondents believe a total health care overhaul would increase the national deficit.

“Voters in Florida are more concerned that the health care solution will increase the deficit substantially than that nothing will get done. In other words they seem to be saying they would rather not have an increases in the deficit even if that means there’s no health care overhaul package,” said Brown.

According to the poll released today, six out of every 10 Florida voters don’t think Democrats in Congress should use their majority to push health care reform through without support from Republicans.

Soon Floridians across the state can begin buying scratch off games from vending machines.

The first of one thousand Instant Ticket Vending Machines were installed this week. Each vending machine can hold up to 24 different scratch-off games, and anyone with exact change can buy a ticket, although the lottery dealer will be on hand to check IDs if necessary.

“We are working closely with our retailers to make certain that these machines are strategically being placed, near customer service counters or check out counters so that they can be monitored by the retailers. Everyone of these machines has an automatic kill-switch whereby if a retailer expects an underage player is trying to purchase tickets from a remote control they can shut the machine down automatically,” said Florida Lotto Spokeswoman Connie Barnes.

The machines are expected to bring in 3.4 million dollars for the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.

College dorm rooms around the state are being bombarded with freshman this week. But students aren’t just bringing their clothes and computers to school, they’re also bringing germs. As Whitney Ray tells us, Florida State University has ordered extra Tamiflu, hired more nurses, and set up hand sanitizing stations around campus in hopes of preventing an outbreak.

FSU will launch a website Monday with the latest information about swine flu prevention on campus.

Emilio and Coreen Deboy are helping their daughter Ali move into her new dorm room at Florida State University. Besides the basics the Deboys are leaving their daughter with extra hand sanitizer and lots of advice.

“Wash your hands the proper way with soap and use friction,” said Coreen.

The threat of a swine flu outbreak was on the minds of many parents dropping their kids off at FSU. Milli Corris tried to get her daughter vaccinated.

“We tried to get the immunization before she came in, we tried to get the shot but it wasn’t available,” said Milli.

The vaccine won’t be ready until mid October, but in the mean time FSU is stocking up on Tamiflu, masks, and hand sanitizer.

The schools health center is stepping up its efforts to prevent an outbreak and adding extra staff incase an outbreak occurs.

Division of Student Affairs Director Lesley Sacher expects to see some sick students before the vaccine is released.

“We can’t protect every single person from getting, but we want to be very active in reducing the risk,” said Sacher.

FSU will send email, Facebook, and Twitter alerts to students in case of a swine flu emergency.

Attorney General Bill McCollum is leading Democratic rival, CFO Alex Sink in the gubernatorial race according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

The poll shows McCollum up 38 – 34 over Sink. The results are the exact opposite of Quinnipiac June poll that showed Sink with a four point advantage. Quinnipiac Pollster Peter Brown says McCollum’s name recognition has helped him in the poll.

“It’s not just that more people know him, more people know him an most of them like him. Now whether it’s a deeper understanding of what he would do as govern and how he would navigate the state’s problems that’s not clear, but clearly he has made a very good first impression on the voters of Florida,” said Brown.

And Governor Charlie Crist continues to make a good impression with voters. The poll shows Crist with a 55 to 26 lead of Republican rival Marco Rubio.

Governor Charlie Crist has his hands full finding a replacement of US Senator Mel Martinez.

Crist interviewed representative Jennifer Carroll and University of North Florida President John Delaney this morning in Jacksonville. This afternoon Crist interviewed his former Chief of Staff and campaign director George Lemieux. Lemieux is a close friend of the governor’s and more than likely won’t run against Crist to keep the seat in 2010.

“I see myself as a Charlie Crist Republican, as a person who would approach government as a problem solver, I believe in less government, less spending, less taxes, more freedom, and I think the Charlie Crist way of staying with your principals, but still trying to solve problems for the people is the way we need to address things in Washington,” said Lemieux.

Crist is trying to have the seat filled by September 8th, when Congress reconvenes in Washington DC.

When school starts next week, there will be 28,000 fewer kids in the Florida school system. Researchers say Florida’s financial situation contributed to the decline by forcing families to look for jobs outside of the state. As Whitney Ray tells us, the student exodus will cost Florida schools 240-million dollars in education funding.

When elementary school Principal Sheree Cagle sounds the tardy bell next Monday, there will be 20 fewer students scrambling to find a seat.

“The whole district has seen a decline in the student population,” said Cagle.

And every time a student leaves a school, that district loses 8,500 dollars in funding.

Statewide the student population has fallen by 28,000 students, costing schools 240,000 dollars. Cagle said the drop in revenue will force schools to make tough choices.

“It usually equals less teachers and that’s what really hurts,” said Cagle.

The per-student funding reduction is just the latest financial problem facing schools. Falling property values and waning sales tax collections are costing schools billions. The Florida Education Association says lawmakers need to find new ways to fund schools.

“While we are in this area where we are not growing economically it gives us an opportunity to look at the way we structure our budgets; are we collecting the right taxes from the right people? Are we currently properly funding education,” said FEA Spokesman Mark Pudlow.

Stimulus dollars are helping to bridge a funding gap for education this year, but the unexpected decline in enrollment and falling property values could leave schools shortchanged. While enrollment is down, schools still face rising fuel, insurance, and other fixed costs.

The state is praising six public schools for raising their grades from an F to an A.

Governor Charlie Crist met with teachers and principals from five of the schools today. The group told Crist it took a lot of extra hours and help from the community to get their grades up. Crist said school grades around the state are on the rise.

“We had the highest grades in our schools this past year, about 75 parent A and B schools. That’s a tremendous accomplishment. And these schools that came here to visit with us today, they went from an F to an A in one year. It’s just incredible what’s happening to education in Florida,” said Crist.

Sheree Cagle, the principal of George S. Hallmark Elementary School in Escambia County, says keeping qualified teachers on the payroll was key to improving he school’s grade.

“You have to have a faculty that works together and is willing to go beyond the call of duty, that’s willing to have a lot of extra training and then to stay after school that’s important, that when you get teachers trained, not to have that big turnover and have to start over next year,” said Cagle.

Besides improving their school grades, the schools also meet 100 percent of the federal Adequate Yearly Progress requirements created by the No Child Left Behind Act.