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State lawmakers put a three percent tuition hike in the state budget this year. If approved by the Governor, costs for 30 credit hours will rise about ninety-three dollars a year. But Governor Rick Scott is casting a concerned eye on the hike.

Group of soon to be college juniors were touring Florida State in preparation for enrolling this fall. We asked them what they thought about the three percent tuition hike lawmakers put in the state budget. They unanimously answered “bad idea”. Francisco Curley, one of the incoming students, says “You’re making it harder for me to get my education pursue whatever I want to do in life.”

Their concerns are apparently being heard by the Governor. Rick Scott has been telling the state legislature he didn’t want a tuition hike since January. “I don’t think tuition should be going up.”, says Governor Scott.

But instead of listening, and instead of putting a dollar amount in the budget, they used a trick, telling universities what to charge. The idea is to make the hike veto-proof. They did the same thing in 2007 to Scott’s predecessor, Charlie Crist, but he said “no” anyway. “I don’t think it’s right to make them pay higher tuition.”, said former Governor Charlie Crist in May of 2007.

Back then, no one challenged what everyone thought was an unconstitutional act. So, now Rick Scott’s lawyers are telling him there is precedent for vetoing what is called proviso language. Scott isn’t tipping his hand completely – just yet. “It’s really impacting our families. And I worry about families like mine growing up that didn’t have a lot of money for tuition.”, adds Governor Scott.

Most universities see the handwriting on the wall. They’re moving forward with the budget plan that doesn’t include a tuition hike.

Friday, May 24th is the last day for Rick Scott to make his budget decisions. It is six years to the day that Charlie Crist vetoed the tuition hike.

State lawmakers recently passed “Lets Kids Be Kids” bill, focusing on allowing foster children to live lives as similar to their peers as possible.
State lawmakers were in Washington trying to help reform the national foster care

19-year-old Martan Gordon is adjusting to life after being in Florida’s foster care system for more than eight years. “It was basically go to school come home or group home. Wherever I was and that was basically my life,” said Gordon.

Laws had forced kids and their foster care families to get approval from social workers and judges on nearly every decision made, creating a feeling of isolation. “We have bubble wrapped these kids and deprived them of any kind of normalcy when it comes to childhood,” said Senator Nancy Detert.

Federal lawmakers listened to Florida’s new bill giving insight on possible changes at the federal level. “States might examine a law Florida enacted just this year, that is to ensure that foster youth are treated like every other child,” said U.S. Representative Dave Reichert.

Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, David Wilkins says the strict rules made it difficult for not only kids in the system, but the adults trying to help those children. “Foster parents are burdened with paper work, court responsibilities, and jobs responsibilities all surrounding protecting the child,” he said.

Now federal officials are looking to Florida to see what changes to make so foster kids everywhere feel some sense of normalcy while living in the system.

Florida has averaged three point two executions a year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1979. Three people have already died by lethal injection this year and two more executions are pending before the middle of June. Legislation on the Governor’s desk is designed to speed up executions even more, but it may have the opposite effect.

Executions are pending for two man between now and June 12. Their executions will bring the year’s total to five. Ranking 2013, number three in executions since Florida resumed using the death penalty in 1979.

But lawmakers want an even quicker pace. Legislation on the Governor’s desk seeks to speed up executions. It also reverses a decision made a decade ago that was intended to speed up the process; but didn’t. Former Supreme Court Justice Raul Cantero. says the new changes are still deficient.

“What I’m disappointed in is that the legislature also did not reform the death penalty process to provide for some kind of unanimity in the death penalty recommendation process as every other state has.”, says Raul Cantero, Former Supreme Court Justice.

The bill attempts to tell the Governor when he has to sign death warrants, but experts say that’s most likely a violation of separation of powers.

Mark Schlackman from the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, says the Governor, could today, sign up to a hundred warrants. “Florida’s process of issuing death warrants is unconstitutionally vague.”, says Schlackman.

Florida leads the nation with 24 death row exonerations. The ACLU says speeding up executions would be a mistake. “And it makes almost certain that Florida is going to execute an innocent person.”, says Howard Simon, ACLU.

The ACLU also says signing the legislation would tie this and future Governor’s hands in signing death warrants, which they say is reason enough for a veto.

Across Florida announcements have been made about new jobs moving to the Sunshine State.

Less than a week after Governor Rick Scott declared victory at the closing ceremony for the Florida Legislative Session, the governor announced Hertz Rental Car Headquarters will be moving from New Jersey. “This is a great day for Florida,” said Gov. Scott.

For months, one big job announcement after another has been made across the state. Including more than 1,500 jobs being announced at the Navy Federal Credit Union in Pensacola and high paying jobs being added to the Jacksonville area in the aviation field. “We’ve been reducing unemployment at twice the national average rate,” said Executive Vice President of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, David Hart.

Another major announcement earlier this week will benefit a large portion of the state. Coca-cola said they will buy 2-billion dollars worth of oranges in newly planted groves over the next 20 years.

Matt Horn reports that even though there has been a lot of positive publicity, opponents say there would be more jobs coming to the state if lawmakers would have expanded the Medicaid expansion bill. Opponents say without the bill, more than 100,000 will not come to Florida. “That would have brought 51-billion dollars of our own tax money back into the state over 10 years and that money goes directly into the economy,” said Executive Director of Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy’s Karen Woodall.

Florida also lost a few thousand jobs when lawmakers failed to pass a bill renovating the Miami Dolphins stadium.

“We still have a long way to go to get back to full employment, but we’re heading in the right direction,” said Hart.

Currently Florida’s unemployment is at 7 and a half percent.

Every time a pharmacist delivers a prescription for pain pills, the person’s name goes into a state database. The database, which is credited with saving lives, has had a rocky time with funding, and its future is now in the hands of the Governor.

Nationwide,  Oxycodone drug deaths are up 3 percent. But in Florida, they are down 29 percent. The most recent comparison is between the last six months of 2011 and the first six months of 2012.

For two years, Florida has kept a database of who is being prescribed dangerous narcotics. Funding has come from private sources and the database was about to run out of money, when lawmakers, led by State Representative Mike Fasano, championed the cause. “A database that has been successful. A database that is saving lives in this state will continue to be able to do that.”, says Rep. Fasano, R-New Port Richey.

Sending a  half million dollars to  fund the database was one of the last compromises in the legislative session.  The problem is that it is lumped together with several controversial items that could bring a veto. Straight from the legislation that passed is a provision that doctors actually check the database to see if someone is an abuser.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says the database has proven its worth. “Because in one case, we are actually able to charge a nurse who had been using the database posing as a doctor so it ended up helping the physician.”, says Bondi.

If the database survives the gubernatorial veto, lawmakers say they’ll try again next year to mandate that the database is checked before the doctors write the first prescription for narcotics.

Florida A&M University has named a new Director of Bands, which is seen as a major step toward reinstatement of the famed Marching 100. The band was suspended following the hazing death of a band student in November 2011.

Florida A & M has crowned Dr. Sylvester Young as the new Director of Marching and Pep bands.

The appointment is a home coming. Young experienced a form of Hazing as a student in 1965. “And I wore red socks with my short white pants, and the first sense of hazing I had was an upper class-man made me leave the field and take those socks off.” Young chuckled.

Young knows he has to change the culture of the band. Hazing has gotten progressively more violent since his stint as a trombone player. Ten people still face second degree murder charges in the hazing death of Drum Major Robert Champion.  “Other schools are watching us very closely and we can actually come out of this being an icon for all other universities” says Young.

The new band director is adamant. He wasn’t promised the band would be back this fall. Interim President Larry Robinson says while no date has been set to make a decision about the bands return, all the right people are now in place.“This is critical piece of that, and we’ll do our assessment, and once we’re done, we’ll be prepared to make an announcement one way or the other” says Robinson.

Students Kachi Ukpabi Jr. worries the clock is ticking too fast for the band to return this fall  “If he can’t come in to June,  People want a band by August, I mean, its a lot of work.”

Young starts in mid June, but a decision on the bands return could be made before then. Dr. Young was the Universities second choice for band director. The school had scheduled an announcement on January 15th, but the candidate backed out at the last minute. Young says he didn’t apply during the initial selection process, but decided he had something to offer.

It’s being called modern-day slavery and is as a 32-billion dollar industry worldwide. Human trafficking in Florida is the third most common place in America.

From Florida’s highways to its message parlors; human trafficking is an every day’s occurrence in the state. As people forced into sex or labor. “Florida ranks third and it’s going to stop,” said Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi.

Ashamed of the high ranking state lawmakers this year made human trafficking a first degree felony, with a 15-year prison sentence. Wire taps have been expanded and now the statewide prosecutor can pursue a case anywhere in the state. “
There’s more we can do and we will do, said Bondi.

In a news conference at the state capitol, government officials met with statewide business leaders to take a bold stance on ending human trafficking. “We’re standing here united on this one issue because like the general has taken so many other issues, we need to get it out of the state,” said Florida Chamber of Commerce’s Tony Carvajal.

The signs are hard to see, but experts say it’s happening all around. “Unlike the slavery of 150 years ago, we don’t see people in chains now,” said Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, Terry Coonan. “But, it’s invisible chains and often times psychological coercion is being used against them.”

Its estimated 27-million people are being trafficked worldwide.

If you’ve noticed something you think that may be human trafficking, you’re urged to call 1-800-96-ABUSE.

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in December, State leaders promised that “everything” was on the table when it came to guns and school safety.

Efforts to put a guidance counselor in every school to spot trouble, require schools to hold more frequent lockdown exercises…or a bill to arm teachers all died when lawmakers went home.

Representative Dennis Baxley chairs a committee that heard some gun bills. We asked why more gun bills, pro or con, didn’t pass. “Definitely a sense of not over reacting to some of the spectacular things that happened like Sandy Hook” says Baxley.

The NRA’s lobbyist was in the gallery when the only gun bill..out of 15 introduced…passed.

The bill clamps down on the ability of the mentally ill to buy a gun. Sponsor Audrey Gibson says it passed because the NRA supported it. “At lease we are at the table talking about it..and we should continue to talk about other ways to make sure we stop gun violence” says the Jacksonville State Senator. After a law enforcement memorial for fallen police officers, Fraternal Order of Police President James Preston says they would have liked some clarification to the controversial Stand Your Ground. “If there is an opportunity to recede or back away from the violence, that would be our preference, but if you have to protect yourself, then by all means, the public needs to be able to do that” says the FOP President.

The bill that would have done that never got a hearing. “We never even had the discussion about stand your ground” said State Senator Chris Smith, the sponsor of legislation to prohibit someone from pursuing someone and then claiming Stand Your Ground.

But the NRA says lawmaker looked and decided nothing was broken that needed fixing.Last year a task force held seven public hearings on Stand Your Ground and made minor recommendations to tweak the legislation, but even that bill was not heard by lawmakers.

Five Florida law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty in 2012, and today they were remembered at an annual ceremony at the state capital. “Anything can turn deadly in a blink of an eye,” said Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi. “And so sadly you had to find that out.”

Keynote speaker Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd lost one of his own deputies last month, after agreeing to speak at the ceremony. “I never imagined that one of my own deputies would lose his life in the line of duty just 10 days prior to this ceremony,” he said.

One-by-one, grieving family members pinned a rose to the area of Florida where their loved one died. “When our law enforcement officers go to work,” said Bondi. “Everyday they risk their lives for all of us.”

Even as the fallen officers were being remembered, Sheriff Judd had a message for criminals in Florida. “If you make one last bad choice by pointing a gun at any one of us, we will make one more good choice and shoot you graveyard dead,” he said.

Three Florida officers have already been killed in the line of duty in 2013.

More than 250 new laws have been sent to the Governor as the annual 60 day legislative session winds down at the state Capitol. Many will impact your daily life.

Efforts to ban internet cafe’s in Florida were going nowhere until a criminal enterprise was uncovered. Then lawmakers showed how fast they could act. “They cracked down on illegal gaming. They’ve done the right thing.”, says Governor Scott.

Florida became the first state to ban law enforcement from using drones without a search warrant. “I think it was a good idea to say here’s the rules we’re going to have in Florida on that.”, says Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart.

And Amy Datz spent the last 9 weeks trying to keep lawmakers from ending the state pension system as it is. She and others generated more than four thousand calls a week and they won. “My mother is almost 90. I hope to live to 90 and I’m going to need my retirement.”, says Amy Datz, retired state employee.

Florida will join 38 other states in banning texting while driving after drama filled effort to kill the bill.

Teachers will get raises. The Governor sought 25 hundred, but it’s likely to be less after support personnel were included. State employees are also seeing a salary bump for the first time in seven years.

One reason there was a lot less rancor this year, because there was a lot more money.

Democrats joined Republicans for the first time in at least six years in voting for the largest state budget in history. “If there’s more good I vote yes. If there’s more bad I vote no.”, says Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hollywood.

Legislation to let residents use school playgrounds for recreation stalled. Efforts to ban riders in the back of pickup trucks failed, as did the re-enactment of a ban on loud car stereos.