Welcome to

Some frustrating news for Florida Business owners tonight. This year the state’s unemployment tax increased by 50 bucks a worker. The frustrating part, as Whitney Ray found out, some of that increase is being used to pay for massive waste in the state’s unemployment system.

Sir Cheezy, AKA James Cullen, is a culinary artist, a food truck entrepreneur serving up gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches to hungry foodies around the state capitol.

“We play with all sorts of different ingredients, all sorts of cheese, different meats. Every week we have something new and different,” said Cullen.

James took out a business loan for his mobile kitchen, and drops thousands of dollars on high quality ingredients.

Gas is a big budget item. But what’s also hitting James in his wallet is an increase in Florida’s unemployment tax.

“Currently I’m paying about 25 to 30 dollars every other week, so roughly 50, 60 dollars a month,” said Cullen.

Florida’s unemployment tax increased 50 bucks this year to 121 dollars per employee, but if that isn’t enough to frustrate business owners, this is, part of the increase is being used to pay for massive waste in the state’s unemployment office.

A report by the US Labor Department found Florida overpaid the unemployed by 500 million dollars from 2008 to 2011. Much of the waste is being attributed to the burden put on the state’s unemployment office during the Great Recession.

The overpayments clearly took a toll on the system. In 2009, the state ran out of cash to pay claims. It borrowed 2.6 billion federal dollars to keep unemployment check circulating.

Now to pay back the loan, the interest and the overpayments, business owners like James will have to make more money to pay the higher taxes.

The Department of Economic Opportunity declined our request for an oncamera interview about the 500 million dollar mistake. But a spokesman responded by email saying not all of money was lost and in fact the state has already reclaimed some of it. We responded asking for specifics, but no one could produce them.