Welcome to

Despite a new survey that shows seven out of ten Floridians support drug testing welfare recipients, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, former White House Drug Policy Coordinator Barry McCaffrey says the testing is counterproductive.

Studies show that more than one out of every four returning veterans is alcohol or drug addicted. The number is growing everyday.

“We get a lot of this kids home who are seriously damaged,” McCaffrey told the crowd.

Former White House Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, speaking to a crowd of former and recovering addicts near Pensacola, says the problem is worse: many soldiers are returning to fight impaired.

“We owe them significant interventions in their lives,” he said.

Asked about Florida’s new policy of testing welfare recipients…some of whom are returning veterans, McCaffrey says the policy is misguided.

“What kind of sense does that make? You’ve got to make the barriers to entering rehabilitation low. You want people in treatment,” McCaffrey said.

A former Navy veteran is the lead plaintiff in the ACLU’s law suit against testing.

Clinical experts generally support drug testing, but they say once someone tests positive, there needs to be treatment.

Something the state does not offer to those who test positive.

“Children are not responsible for their parent using,” Clinical expert Diane Vchulek said. “We need to offer some kind of help.”

Treatment experts say Post Traumatic Stress if the first indication of possible addiction. And as more veterans return, can’t find work and apply for benefits, more of them will be denied.

Legislation to repeal drug testing for welfare recipients faces an uphill battle. 71 percent of Florida voters support the tests, according to a new poll. Support is at 90 percent among Republicans and at about 50 percent for Democrats. As Whitney Ray tells us, Republican lawmakers are vowing to crush the repeal bill, even though the tests have excluded just a few welfare recipients.

The program is expected to cost the state about three million dollars a year. Part of that cost was supposed to be offset by kicking drug users out of the cash assistance program, but at this point it’s unclear if money will be saved.

Close to a hundred thousand Floridians, many of them kids, receive cash assistance though a state welfare program.

The average pay out is 240 dollars a month and state lawmakers want to make sure none of that money is used to buy drugs.

A new law mandating drug tests for welfare recipients went into effect July 1st, after many lawmakers claimed there might be a drug problem in the welfare system.

But there is no evidence welfare recipients are prone to use drugs at a higher rate than the general public and in fact, an early sample of the drug testing program showed only about two and half percent tested positive.”

Republican Senator Don Gaetz calls those statistics into question. He believes the tests are keeping drug users from even applying for the cash assistance program.

“Maybe this is having the affect that we had expected and that is that people who are using drugs, are using drugs aren’t coming forward,” said Gaetz.

Senator Arthenia Joyner, a Democrat, disagrees. She sees the tests as invasive and a waste of taxpayer money. So she’s trying to end them.

“The general population is at eight percent drug use. We are talking about two percent among welfare recipients. I think that the entire thing is ill founded,” said Joyner.

Joyner’s up against a Republican controlled legislature.

“In terms of public opinion the prospects for appeal on that measure are probably not good,” said Brown.

And a new poll that shows public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of the test.

A plan to let a private company operate a dozen state prisons in South west Florida will get a crucial hearing next week. the plan has been controversial because of the size of the privatization and because of the way it was done.

The state receives bids next week from private companies wanting to operate a dozen state prisons. Ken wood, a Teamsters Vice President has already filed an ethics complaint over the proposal.  “And the Republican Party has taken a million dollars in contributions from the very companies that will benefit from this,” says Wood.

The last prison privatized..Blackwater Correctional in the panhandle, is the subject of an ongoing pay to play investigation by the FBI.The legislature didn’t have one debate about privatizing prisons. the language was stuck in the budget at the very last minute.

The plan to privatize the prisons is being challenged in court next week as well. Matt Puckett of the Florida Police Benevolent Association is arguing that you can’t change state law simply by telling the Dept. of Corrections how to spend or not spend money.

“They have never done a study to show that prison privatization actually saves money” says Puckett. “So we think the public was hoodwinked.”

Rick Scott has tried to keep the Corrections Secretary that he fired over the privatization issue from testifying in court next week. Democrats and Republicans alike say the way the plan was slipped into the budget doesn’t pass the smell test.

State Senator Eleanor Sobel of Broward County hopes the issue is revisited by lawmakers. “Prison Privatization needs to be debated, It needs to be discussed” she says. Republican State Senator Charlie Dean of Inverness agrees “And we didn’t have that big discussion.”

At stake are thousands of jobs for correctional officers who could get payouts totaling 25 million dollars. That’s more  than the 18 to 22 million the state would save from privatizing the prisons .

The bid process was limited to one bid for all 12 prisons being privatized, eliminating smaller companies who might have bid on one or two prisons. The bids are due tuesday and the law suit gets a hearing on Thursday. The plan calls for the prisons to go private on January first.

A new Quinnipiac Poll shows Governor Rick Scott’s image make-over is working, albeit, slowly. FS One 37 percent of voters now approve of the job the rookie governor is doing. That’s two points higher than his August approval rating of 35 percent and quite a bit better than 29 percent in May. As Whitney Ray tells us, this is the first poll taken since Scott changed his staff, his relationship with the media and his shirt.

Three months ago Governor Rick Scott had a contentious relationship with the media, always wore dark suits and had more foes than fans.

Today the governor nor is becoming more popular. He’s traded in his suits for a button up shirts with the state emblem and spends more time with reporters.

“The governor’s approval rating is up a couple of points,” said Quinnipiac Pollster Peter Brown.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows Scott’s job approval rating has climbed two points from his August rating of 35 percent.

“It’s not great news but on the scale of things, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,” said Brown.

Part of Scott’s new look includes taking off his tie and losing the jacket, but he maybe taking his makeover too far.

Scott ran the last two cabinet meetings suit. Spectators noticed.

Veronica Itkin: I think he sort of was trying to relate to the people.
Reporter: And did he?
Veronica Itkin: I’m undecided

Wednesday he made tough choices about pardons and civil rights restoration in his signature oxford shirts.

While the changes may seem minimal, polls show they’re working. But what will be the ultimate judge of Scott’s job performance is the economy and how many jobs he creates. Scott’s likeability rating increased more than his job approval. According to Quinnipiac now 37 percent of Florida voters like Scott, that’s up three percentage points from a month ago.

Despite reports showing people receiving welfare use far fewer drugs than the general population, an attempt to repeal a controversial new drug testing law still faces an uphill battle.

A Quinnipiac poll released today shows 71 percent of Florida voters support drug testing welfare recipients. State Senator Arthenia Joyner filed a bill to repeal the drug testing law. Joyner is working to change the public’s perception on welfare recipients.

“People don’t know facts and if we can educate them, I’m sure they would say why are we spending money to get two percent of the people,” said Joyner.

Two and a half percent of welfare recipients tested after the state began implementing the new law failed. Drug use among the general population is eight percent. Beside Joyner’s repeal, bill the ACLU is also suing to stop the drug tests.

Lawmakers are asking the state Attorney General and Department of Revenue to close an alleged loophole and force online travel companies to pay taxes on service fees.

Right now if Expedia, hotels.com or other online companies buy a hotel room, they pay sales tax. But when they resale the room at a higher rate, they don’t pay the state a sales tax on the new price. They say they don’t have to because they’re charging customers a service fee, not selling a room. Representative Rick Kriseman says that’s illegal.

“What we are talking about is the failure of a particular group to pay the taxes that are owed, despite the fact that they are collecting the taxes. That is an important point they are collecting it, they just aren’t paying it all in,” said Kriseman.

Kriseman says the state is losing 500 million dollars a year to online travel companies. He says the money would go far in helping to fund education and other state services.

Students from five Florida Universities are in Washington, DC competing against other collegiate teams from around the world to design, build and operate a completely sustainable solar house. The Solar Decathlon is a project of the US Department of Energy, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, it gives students first hand experience designing and building the world of tomorrow.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument, on the edge of the National Mall, 19 collegiate teams are competing to build the most efficient solar house. Team Florida is 40 engaged students from UCF, USF, FSU, and Florida. There is also a team from Florida International.

“The point of the entire competition is to be 100 percent solar powered and off-grid,” FIU team member Manny Dorticos said. “So these houses are supposed produce all of this energy, be net-zero homes essentially and produce everything that they need to sustain themselves. But also, they need to be within a certain range so that the public can afford these houses.”

There is a team from China. One from Canada, Belgium and New Zealand. Justin Vanderbroeck is from Team Florida and he supervised the solar installation.

“To get up there and do it, it’s a lot of energy and a lot of anticipation that’s finally taking place,” Team Florida engineering student Justin Vanderbroeck said.

The students come primarily from architecture, engineering and interior design disciplines.

The Department of Energy put up $100,000 for each house. But most of the houses are $250,000 or more to construct. Teams raised the difference from fundraisers or corporate sponsorships.

“We were really shooting for an affordable house for the average household in America to be energy efficient, run off solar energy, and still have a nice, comfortable place to live,” Vanderbroeck said.

Win, Lose, or Draw, the Team Florida House will eventually end up on the University of South Florida Campus to serve as a learning center.

For more information on the event, visit: http://www.solardecathlon.gov/

Five hundred jobs will be created in Hillsborough County over the next five years by a major media corporation. Time Warner announced today, it will open an office in either Tampa or Temple Terrace by the end of 2012. As Whitney Ray tells us, the announcement comes as Governor Rick Scott struggles to lower Florida’s stagnant unemployment rate.

Florida beat out Georgia, New York, Tennessee and several other states in a competition for jobs. By the end of 2012, Time Warner, a major media conglomerate, will begin hiring 500 Floridians to work at a new employee services office. The companies CFO says they chose Florida because of its low cost workforce and constant wooing by Governor Rick Scott.

“We were working with the governor’s team and they were very encouraging and very good to work with,” said CFO John Martin.

The announcement brings Scott closer to his target of 700-thousand jobs in seven years.

“We are doing this day in and day out and we’ll have hopefully a lot more announcements like this,” said Scott.

But while the private sector is growing, Florida’s public sector is shrinking. Florida has lost more than 16-thousand government jobs this year. That’s one reason the unemployment rate remains stagnant even as the private sector grows.

For three months the state’s unemployment rate has remained at 10.7 percent. Florida is adding almost 10-thousand jobs a month, but Democrats say the attacks on public sector jobs are keeping the state down.

“There seems to be some idea in this legislature and this administration that public sector jobs are bad, and I couldn’t disagree more,” said State Senator Nan Rich.

Another reason the unemployment rate remains flat is because, as the economy improves people who had stopped looking for work reenter the job market, adding to the unemployment count. The jobs will be created at Time Warner’s new Shared Services office. The salaries will average about 50-thousand dollars a piece and duties will range from payroll to human resources.

Emotions were high today as state senators raised questions about the death of a girl in foster care and why signs her life was in danger were ignored.

Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins told senators, breakdowns between investigators and supervisors kept the state from doing more to save the life of 10 year old Nubia Barahona. Nubia’s foster parents were arrested for her death in February. Wilkins says the department is open to any changes that would make Florida’s foster care system safer.

“Obviously when you are talking about kids and tragedy it becomes a very emotional discussion. I understand the committee’s emotion on this issue. We’ve been through the same thing, but we have put together a very aggressive plan to deal with that this session,” said Wilkins.

Before Nubia died, DCF was warned by her teachers that she was being abused. An investigator visited with Nubia the day before she was killed. The Senate Children, Family and Elder Affairs Committee is exploring legislation aimed at protecting foster children from abuse.

A senate report claims state oversight of Florida businesses that care for seniors isn’t working.

The Senate Health Regulations Committee issued the report to highlight the shortcoming of the state’s role as a watchdog over assisted living facilities. The report comes after a newspaper investigation uncovered cases of abuse and neglect that lead to more than a dozen deaths. In most of those cases the caregiver was given a slap on the wrist. State Senator Ronda Storms chairs the Senate Elder Affairs Committee and is ready to take action on the report.

“There is a lot of work to do there, but I think they gave us a good start and I’m looking forward to being able to address it,” said Storms.

The report says the Agency for Health Care Administration needs to handout stiffer penalties to Assisted Living Facilities that neglect patients and shutdown the ones that abuse seniors. Stiffer penalties and tougher licensing requirements are likely to become legislation this next session.

GOP Senators nominated a panhandle Republican to lead the chamber in 2013.

State Senator Don Gaetz has served in the legislature since 2006. He was honored in front of a packed house today in an hour long ceremony in the state capitol. Current Senate President Mike Haridopolos says Gaetz is a proven leader.

Gaetz is on deck, but if Democrats win a majority in the Senate in 2012, their nominee will become the senate president. Political experts say that’s highly unlikely.

State Lawmakers began working today on better protections for kids.

The Select Committee on Protecting Florida’s Children was formed in response to the Casey Anthony trial. Anthony didn’t report her daughter missing until a month had passed. State Senator Mike Fasano is sponsoring a bill that would make it a crime for a parent not to report a missing child within 48 hours.

Several bills were filed in response to Anthony beating her murder charge. The committee chairman says he wants to review current laws before making any decisions on new ones.

Six Florida teachers have filed a lawsuit claiming new legislation abolishing tenure and creating a system of merit pay violates the state constitution. Article I, section six guarantees collective bargaining, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the teachers believe the new law limits what can be bargained.

Beth Weatherstone and Carolyn Loftin had never met before Wednesday, but they came to the Capitol from opposite sides of the state to file a lawsuit against a new merit pay law that they say infringes on their right to bargain.

Their attorney, Ron Meyer, filed the suit in Circuit court.

“I’m reminded of what is attribute to Henry Ford when he rolled out the Model T, ‘you can have any color as long as it’s black.’ Thats what we’re telling public employees in this state is you can bargain anything you want as long as it looks like this,” Meyer said. “That’s not effective collective bargaining.”

Six teachers are plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

Beth joined in because she believes the law forces her to choose between really teaching her Vero Beach students to understand algebra or teaching them to perform on a test so she can keep her job.

“I know I will teach them the Algebra I, but I could be let go within a two to three year period and lose my certification to teach because of that FCAT test,” she said.

Carolyn is a 35-year classroom veteran who feels like policy makers minimize what it takes to perform in a room full of kindergartners.

“Kindergarten students are very smart,” she said. “They’re eager to learn and I do believe that I make a difference in their lives, they want to be in school and they enjoy being there.”

Most school districts in the state are fighting the clock. They face a September 30th deadline to come up with a plan to reward merit pay, even though lawmakers put no money into the plan and most school budgets are being cut.

Florida’s teamsters have filed an ethics complaint against Governor Rick Scott alleging a pay to play scheme revolving around a plan to privatize a dozen state prisons. The complaint says the nations two largest private prison operators gave nearly a million dollars, mostly to Florida Republicans, right before state lawmakers voted to order the privatization. Michael Filler of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters says there is a connection between the contributions and what lawmakers and the Governor did.

“What’s clear here is that the public safety is at risk and jobs will suffer as a result of this initiative,” Filler said. “We think there is a clear linkage between the amount of money that came into this state and how the elected leaders are reacting based upon those political contributions.”

The Teamsters are engaged in a political battle to control bargaining rights for Correctional officers. They also say it was unethical for the state pension plan, controlled by the Governor and Cabinet, to invest seven million dollars in the two private prison operators while the state was moving to privatize so many prisons.

A date has yet to be set for Florida voters to make their choice in the Presidential Preference Primary. The state’s top elected officials have argued for an early February date to make Florida more important, but anything earlier than March 6th would violate national party rules.

The Republican Presidential Candidate Debate in Tampa is proof that the 8 candidates consider Florida important.

And in an effort to be even more relevant, the state is flirting with an early primary…House Speaker Dean Cannon has been driving the train for a date in February. Cannon now says “And while I would not want to leapfrog the traditional early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, my view is that Florida should go no later than fifth and that we should have our own date.”

Arizona has picked February 28th, setting off a race to see who can one up the other among key states.

Unable to pick a date this spring, Cannon and others set up a ten member commission to set the date…but no one has yet to be named to make the decision.

State law says the primary must be held sometime between the first Tuesday in January and the first Tuesday in March. The problem is that only the March date meets national party requirements.

The delay is making elections supervisors nervous. Back in May, they wrote the Governor that a decision in October would not allow for proper planning. Leon elections Supervisor Ion Sancho is worried “Now you are going to have to have substitute precincts because the facilities will not be available,” says Sancho.

Florida Democratic Party executive Director Scott Arceneaux says Democrats won’t participate if there is an early date.  “And Florida Republicans chose to ignore both their own committee and our committee. They put people in a real bad spot”.

The ten member commission must contain at least 3 minority party members, but while the law says the commission picking the primary date must contain at least three minority members, it does not specify they must be Democrats.