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The state lost millions of sales tax dollars last summer as the BP oil spill grew and tourists opted to vacation elsewhere. But exactly how much the state lost is still unclear. Today state economists began the enormous task of calculating the damage. As Whitney Ray tells us, the number they come up with could be used in a claim against BP or a lawsuit.

Business at Barnacle Bills, a seafood restaurant a few miles from the state capitol, is almost back to normal. Customers stopped coming last year after a broken BP oil pipe began spewing into the gulf. Some thought Florida seafood was tainted.

The perception cost owner Jeff Stilwell tens of thousands of dollars. He filed a claim. BP has paid less than 10 percent.

“Everybody is just at the end of their rope, and they (BP) are sitting on all that money and they just don’t want to pay,” said Jeff.

Now the state is beginning to calculate its losses. Wednesday afternoon state economists began crunching numbers to figure out how much sales tax revenue was lost from seafood sales and a decline in tourism.

Florida TaxWatch tabulated the losses six months ago. They released a report in December claiming the spill cost the state half a billion dollars in economic activity and 15 million in sales tax dollars.

The report may be just a starting point. TaxWatch Vice President for Research Rob Weissert says newer data will likely change those figures.

“It did have a significant affect at a time when Florida was really working to recover from the economic recession. So in some ways it couldn’t have happened at a worse time in a worse place,” said Weissert.

Once the state has a damage total it can file a claim. If BP isn’t willing to pay, a judge could force the oil giant’s hand. The state plans to file a claim once a total is calculated. If there are problems getting paid, the state still has time to file a lawsuit. The law allows a three year window to file suit beginning when the damages occur.

Preparing for a hurricane in 2011… means keeping up with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

A joint poll released today by Ron Sachs Communications and Mason Dixon shows one in two people would use social media or text messaging to find out if they are in harms way. The poll also discovered that half would use social media to let their friends and family know if they need help or made it out okay. National Hurricane Survival Initiative Spokeswoman Michelle Ubben says social media is becoming a useful tool for emergency workers.

“That’s good news because it gives us tools that we didn’t have just a few years ago and emergency mangers have gotten very skilled at using those to find people who are in need and to get them the help that they need,” said Ubben.

The report found that 60 percent of people under the age of 35 would turn to social media for updates and warnings, compared to just 45 percent of people 35 to 60.

As the president prepared to announce a plan to end US involvement in the war in Afghanistan, Florida is getting a new director of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Today retired Army Colonel Mike Pendergast was confirmed to lead the department. Pendergast says he’ll focus on finding jobs for veterans from past wars and those coming back from the Middle East.

“What we really need to concentrate on is ensuring that they reintegrate themselves back into the communities. Learn what benefits are available to them and then actually take advantage of those benefits so that they don’t miss any opportunities and get right back into the workplace,” said Pendergast.

For years now the unemployment rate for veterans has been several points higher than the civilian population. Tonight President Barack Obama is expected to announce 30-thousand of the 100-thousand soldiers fighting in Afghanistan will return home by September 2012. Finding jobs for those returning vets will be no small task.

The unions representing police, correctional employees and teachers have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new requirement that employees must contribute three percent of their salary towards their pension. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the suit won’t be settled before the first deductions take place, so it is asking the court to keep the money from being spent.

Greylynn DeWinter has taught high school English for the last eight years. She calls the three percent pension contribution enacted by the legislature a payroll tax and she’s none too happy that her next check will be lighter.

“I feel insulted and demeaned,” DeWinter said. “I think that if you want to increase learning and you want to improve education, the worst thing that you can do is to slap your teachers.”

DeWinter is not a union member, but she could benefit from the law suit filed by the Florida Education Association. The suit argues the three percent was part of a contract agreement between existing employees and their employer.

“If the legislature chose to change the retirement system, it would be for all new employees coming in after July 1,” FEA President Andy Ford said. “But they can’t do what they did for current employees.”

Why?

“It’s unconstitutional,” Ford said.

Because this issue isn’t going to be settled before the three percent starts coming out of people’s checks, the lawsuit asks the court to hold onto the money until there’s a final decision.

Legislative leaders who pushed the contribution would not rule out losing the court suit, but they say the contribution is the right thing to do.

“The state of Florida has been the only state in the country that does not require its public employees to contribute towards their pension,” Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) said. “I think that it’s legal, I think it’s practical. And frankly, I think it’s realistic, given the times that we live in today.

The new contribution requirement affects 655,000 people in the Florida retirement system.

Florida lawmakers held the first of 26 public hearings today as they begin the process of redrawing legislative and congressional district lines. The once-a-decade process is already under fire from the League of Women Voters and others because no maps have yet been drawn. With no maps there is little for the public to speak about. Deirdre McNab, Florida President of the League of Women Voters, has written lawmakers asking them to speed up the map drawing.

“We’ve called upon the legislature to accelerate the timeline, to begin working on maps right away so that the people of Florida have something to comment on,” McNabb said. “And to also, to drop their litigation lawsuits against the very amendments that the voters of Florida approved at 63 percent.”

But Will Weatherford, House Chairman of the Redistricting committee, says lawmakers want to hear from the public before drawing any lines.

“We’re trying to utilize as many sources as we can to get the word out about what we’re doing and why it’s important,” Weatherford said. “I mean, we’re talking about redrawing the entire state of Florida. We don’t want to do that until we get the participation from the public.”

More than 100 people attended the first hearing this afternoon. A second hearing takes place tonight at the Capitol, then moves to Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach on Tuesday and Panama City on Wednesday.

New numbers released today show May was the 8th straight month of job growth in Florida. The Sunshine State’s unemployment dropped two-tenths of a percent in May, but there are still 980,000 people looking for work. But as Mike Vasilinda tells us, there are some encouraging signs.

24,000 unemployed Floridians found work in May. At 10.6 percent the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been for 21 months. But state economists say 980 thousand people are still looking for work. That’s more than the population of six states.

“Florida has the second highest unemployment rate of the ten most populous states,” state labor economist Rebecca Rust said.

There are other bright spots. The state-run online job site, Employ Florida, added 7,000 jobs last month, and has 40,000 more jobs listed than a year ago.

This business is looking for not one but two people.

Larry Seymour started a windshield replacement service five years ago with just himself and a truck.

Now he works with his wife. They have a satellite office. One of the two positions they need to fill is a replacement position. But the other is because of growth. Wife Sarah says business is growing because she and Larry aggressively seek work.

“We’re the smaller, local, family-owned company, and if we don’t get out there and get our own people, the business is going to go somewhere else,” Sarah Seymour said.

20 people have applied for the two openings. Sarah says they are all well qualified. And while job postings are up, there are still three-and-a-half job seekers for every online job posted on the state site.

Florida is under a wildfire state of emergency. Since the beginning of the year, more than 3 hundred thousand acres have burned and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, State Officials fear the worst may still be ahead.

The state capitol was shrouded in smoke on Thursday from a wildfire a hundred miles away. Inside State officials were being briefed about the worst drought Florida has seen in more than a decade. “Ninety-three percent of the state is in a drought of some sort right now,” said Forestry Director Jim Karels.

Governor Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency, allowing the national guard to help and mobilizing resources from all state agencies. Wednesday night there were 359 active fires, but as many as 50 thousand lightening strikes overnight increased the number by mid day Thursday.

“ As of fifteen minutes ago, the number of active fires is now 422. With the drought index reaching very dangerous levels,” the Governor said.

On Wednesday the mercury hit a hundred and five here in the Capitol city breaking a record that was set in 1933. More than a hundred thousand acres are currently burning. No area of the state is immune. Without rain soon, and a lot of it, state officials will have to consider a ban on Fourth of July fireworks shows.

“If we get good moisture. Good rain fall. It allows us to catch up on a lot of these fires and do some mop up then I don’t anticipate any impact on Fourth of July festivities, but the next two weeks weather will tell the tale. We gotta have rain,” said Putnam.

Officials compare the current danger to 1998 when hundreds of homes burned and large sections of interstate highways were closed across the state

In a memo to his agency heads, Governor Rick Scott has delayed mandatory drug testing in all but one state agency under his control. A memo from Scott to his Agency Secretaries says it would not be wise to go forward in all agencies as long as the American Civil Liberties has a law suit against the plan. But Scott says the program will go forward in the Department of Corrections and says he is not retreating.

“As you know, we are, every agency has to do it a little bit differently, so we decided to  go forward with them first,” said Scott. Did you feel you did not have good legal ground in this and that it was an intrusion in the rights of public employees?

“ No, look the private sector does this all the time. Our taxpayers expect our state employees to be productive and this is exactly what the private sector does. Its the right thing and we are going forward,” the Governor said.

In a news release, the American Civil Liberties claimed victory. Scott meanwhile says every employee at the Department of Corrections is now subject to drug testing. The ACLU says it will continue to fight the plan in court.

The governor and Cabinet are asking the Department of revenue to come up with a plan to decide if online travel companies are paying their fair share of taxes to the state. Currently, companies such as Expedia buy hotel rooms at a discount rate, then mark them up significantly, but only pay the tax on what they paid for the room, not on what it sold for. Attorney General Pam Bondi asked for the plan.

“You know, an experienced tax lawyer, the executive director of the Department of Revenue, said it was ambiguous right now because we are relying on a statute from 1949. So that’s why we need to look at this and come to a determination on it based on hearing all sides,” Bondi said.

The online companies are being sued by several counties over the lack of payment. Internal documents leaked from lawyers for several on line retailers suggest the companies could be liable for paying taxes on the entire transaction.

Read Scott’s memo to Agency Heads scottsuspensionmemo062011

Every car, boat, and homeowner in Florida is still paying for the hurricanes of 2004-2005 and will be for at least the next five years. The cost comes in the form of an assessment on your policy, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the assessments could get more

This 2700 dollar homeowners policy has an additional 76 dollars on it to cover the state’s losses from the 2004-2005 storm season.

On Thursday, Governor Rick Scott and the State Cabinet will be told the state run insurer of last resort, Citizens, is in better shape than it’s ever been. The company can weather 17 billion in losses. But a big storm hitting Palm Beach could cost the company up to 56 Billion. In St. Petersburg, the Citizens exposure is 39 billion.

“You hear horror stories of, instead of the three percent assessment that we’re paying right now from ’04 and ’05, to 20 to 30 percent a year for 20 or 30 years,” Sam Miller with the Florida Insurance Council said.

This homeowner got socked with a 34 percent rate increase by a private insurance company this year. While their neighbor, who’s with Citizens, will pay less than 10 percent more.

State lawmakers balked this year at raising Citizens rates more than the 10 percent already allowed by law.

Private insurers say part of the problem is that because Citizens rates were frozen for two years, the last resort company is actually cheaper than private insurers.

“Citizens is probably writing business that private insurers would write if they could compete with Citizens,” Miller said.

And because Citizens is growing by 20 percent  a year, the risk of increased assessments to everyone in Florida are growing higher each year.

Florida Power and Light customers will see their bills increase by about 71 cents per month for the next year. The company got the go ahead from a unanimous Public Service Commission today to purchase power from an expanded Waste to Energy plant in Palm Beach County. The Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County will construct and operate the waste-to-energy (WTE) facility that will add electrical generating capacity to power about 21,000 homes through the combustion of municipal solid waste.  No one appeared to oppose the plant and FP&L declined comment after the vote, but PSC Commissioners praised the deal.

“This project will increase, by 38%, FPL’s renewable portfolio and provide, what’s listed in the information, about 575 thousand megawatt hours or renewable energy” says PSC Commissioner Eduardo Balbis.

FP&L customers will see the first renewable energy from the plant in 2015.

Today, June 14^th is Flag Day, first celebrated in 1877, and first proclaimed as Flay Day in 1916. Today at the state capitol in Tallahassee, the Knights of Columbus began a pilot program to increase the patriotic observance of Flag Day nationally. James Geuin (goin) says patriotism declined following the Vietnam War, but has seen a resurgence since 9-11.

“Partly because of those same Vietnam veterans we see the troops being honored when they come back from deployment oversees but we need to spread that through our society and through the country to bring patriotism back to the forefront” says Geuin.

Florida, New Jersey, and California were the three states selected by the Knights of Columbus as pilot programs for increasing participation of Flag Day. The organization hopes to expand the celebration to all 50 states over the next few years.

Bright futures abound, but beginning this fall new and returning students will have fill out a form: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.  Florida State University studen Theo Strom of Jacksonville says the requirement is news to him ”ah..I was not aware of that, no.”

The provision is the first time the state has collected financial data on Bright Futures. Students fear it could be the first step in requiring not only good grades but financial need as well. “That’s not fair at all cause you work for your GPA to get the money”, says student Miranda Wilhelm of Daytona Beach”

Gabriel Diaz, a student from Miami, says Bright Futures cash is important to him “So Bright Futures really helps people like me who aren’t quite exceedingly rich, but not quite, you know very need based, so I think if Bright Futures turned need based that would be terrible”.

Every year that there has been a Bright Futures scholarship, there has been an attempt to make it needs based.  Sponsor Evelyn Lynn,  a State Senator from Ormond Beach, says she will fight against any attempts to require a needs analysis for the popular scholarships, but adds “We would like to have the data on how many students actually fall into a need based category and how many are not in that need based category, says the Republican Senator from Central Florida”.

We caught up with parents Glenn and Sherry Fell on the FSU campus. Sherry believes their freshman’s good grades are all that should be required “I feel if they worked for it, they deserve it”.

Next spring, after lawmakers are armed with new financial information, the effort to make Bright Futures more need based will almost certainly be fought again. More than two hundred thousand students have received Bright Futures. The new financial requirement takes effect July first.

Florida Democrats celebrated several big wins at their Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner over the weekend, including mayoral races in Tampa and Jacksonville. They also laid out plans for what they hope will be a 2012 Obama victory. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the most popular name bandied about at the convention wasn’t even a Democrat

On July 1st,   Alvin Brown becomes the first Democratic Mayor of Jacksonville in 20 years. His opponent had embraced Rick Scott.

In Miami, both Republicans running for mayor are running from Scott. His most recent favorable rating is at 29 percent, with 57 percent saying they disapprove of the job he is doing.

Democrats are beginning to believe Republican Governor Rick Scott will be their biggest asset in 2012 and beyond

“Rick Scott has become politically toxic for the Republican Party and all Republican candidates because theyshare his extreme, job-destroying agenda,” Florida Democratic Party Spokesman Eric Jotkoff said.

The problem for Democrats is a weak bench. Alex Sink looks poised for a comeback in 2014, and Democrats even floated former Republican Governor Charlie Crist as a potential candidate when they met over the weekend.

To be perfectly clear, former Governor Charlie Crist was not at the Democrats weekend. And when we reached him by phone, he told us he was perfectly happy enjoying the freedoms of the private sector.

Crist did not rule out a future run. And when we asked Scott about the bashing he took from Democrats, he chose the high road.

“Whoever wins in 2012 is going to win the same way I did,” Scott said. “Who’s got the right blueprint for job creation?”

But Democrats see blood in the water. And Rick Scott doesn’t appear to want to change course, even though his favorable numbers keep dropping.

Quinnipiac says Rick Scott is the most unpopular in the country based on their polling in six key states.