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Professional sports teams in Florida are required to use their stadiums as homeless shelters during the off-season, but they don’t.

Legislation to allow the state to take back some of the 300 million dollars in taxpayer money Florida’s pro sports teams receive passed a senate committee today. Mike Bennett is the bill’s sponsor. He says the teams need to follow the law or stop taking tax dollars.

“The professional sports franchises keep going back to the taxpayers, the people of the State of Florida, and asking them for money, but they give nothing back and it just kind of irritated me,” said Bennett.

The bill was also amended to include penalties for pro teams that have games blacked out due to low attendance. If the bill passes, teams would be charged 125-thousand dollars for every game taken off the airwaves.

Experts in business licensing and regulation are leaving their offices to help customers in person this week.

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation is setting up a booth in the state capitol to answer questions and take complaints. Sandi Poreda, a DBPR spokeswoman, says the booth is equipped with computers and wireless internet so experts can walk people through online applications.

“People who have questions about license applications, who may have questions about specific professional licenses, they can come here and meet with specialized teams from our department and get those questions answered. Any trouble they have with their applications we can go ahead and get that fixed right here at the capitol,” said Poreda.

Thursday construction licensing experts will be on hand and Friday cosmetology regulators will be at the DBPR booth. The booth will also be set up on select days in February.

Two businessmen in rural Marianna, Florida, 60 miles west of the state Capitol, are crying foul over their inclusion in an anti Mitt Romney video. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the half hour production, titled “King of Bain” is the work of a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich.

8700 people cal Marianna, Florida home. The sleepy Florida Panhandle town has become center stage in the GOP primary fight for the presidency.

“One stop on Romney’s quest: Marianna, Florida.”

Romney’s Bain Capital purchased, then sold, a small washing machine manufacturer, here.

A video accusing Mitt Romney of being a jobs killer features two Marianna businessmen.

There’s just one problem: those who were interviewed here in Marianna say everything they said was taken out of context.

The video implies that Tommy Jones’s income suffered after Bain took over.

“We prospered from the time that UniMac was sold to Raytheon, through Bain,” Mike Baxley, former UniMac employee and current co-owner of Marianna based Washers-R-Us. “Then the fact is at the end they closed our factory down and we had to go find more employment.”

Jobs were lost here, but Jones and partner Mike Baxley started their own successful company. Both say every quote in the video was taken out of context.

“You don’t know what’s true anymore,” Jones said.

The partners say its disgusting that more than 176,000 people have seen the video.

The men are hoping that Mitt Romney will come to town in person, so they can tell him first hand they didn’t say bad things about him.

Tonight we are learning about another case of hazing at FAMU. Four more band members are facing charges, for what police says was the beating of five clarinet players trying to join a secret group within the Marching 100. As Whitney Ray tells us, the hazing ritual in question took place two months before the death of drum major Robert Champion.

Arrested for hazing, four FAMU band members are the latest students to face charges, after the school pledged to end the violent tradition… that may have cost one student his life.

The charges date back to September before the first home football game of the year. That’s when five pledges tried to join a subsection of the clarinets, according to court documents they had to endure a beating to get in. It happened here near FAMU’s campus. The pledges were told to play music while, according to police, senior members of the band punched and slapped them.

“The culture of the campus is changing,” said Floide Shelly, a member of FAMU Student Government.

Shelly says even though the incident occurred nearly five months ago, it’s proof FAMU is turning things around.

“Our student body has become a lot more aware and more cautions of how their actions not only affect themselves, but affect others,” said Shelly.

Governor Rick Scott says the school needs to uncover all hazing cases, even old ones.

“I’m glad that FAMU is taking this seriously. They are looking at the issues they’re dealing with. I hope there are no more incidents were somebody is hazed,” Scott said.

This is the second round of arrests at FAMU for hazing. But there still hasn’t been any arrests made in connection to the hazing that lead to Champion’s death.

Florida’s unemployment rate has fallen into the single digits for the first time since mid-2009.

December labor statistics were released today. They show Florida’s unemployment rate down from 10 percent to 9.9. Since Governor Rick Scott took office the rate has fallen from 12 percent. Scott says cutting taxes and regulations has helped rejuvenate the job market.

“Lower taxes, less regulation, easier permitting; those are things that are getting people to build their businesses here. So business is doing it. The private sector is doing it. Government is just creating the environment,” said Scott.

Florida has added 142-thousand jobs in 2012. 17-thousand were added in December.

In an effort to give the unemployed hope, lawmakers are moving a bill to rename the state’s unemployment program the re-employment assistance program. As Whitney Ray tells us, the bill’s sponsor says changing the name will change the psyche of Florida’s jobseekers.

With a unanimous vote, unemployment benefits in Florida came one step closer to extinction. But it’s not the money for jobseekers that is going away, just the name.

Representative Doug Holder is moving legislation to rename the state’s unemployment compensation program the Re-Employment Assistance Program. He says changing the name will change the outlook of the unemployed.

“I think that re-employment certainly is a more positive word,” said Holder.

The idea for the legislation came straight from Governor Rick Scott and supporters say switching the focus from unemployment to reemployment will have a positive impact. But not everyone is buying it.

“Changing the name doesn’t make a hill of beans of difference to the unemployed,” said Woodall.

Karen Woodall, the director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, isn’t opposed to the name change. She just wants to make sure the transition doesn’t keep people from claiming benefits.

The fear is someone who just lost their job will search the web for unemployment benefits and come up empty.

The state is already working to fix that problem. The bill’s sponsor says by the time the name is changed, an internet search for unemployment will direct seekers to the state’s re-employment website. There were talks of amending the bill to include a reduction of the state’s unemployment compensation tax, but as of now the tax reduction bill will have to stand on it’s own.

A battle of two ticket giants is heating up in Tallahassee.

TicketMaster wants more control over how paperless tickets are resold. StubHub wants customers to have the freedom to resell as they please. Today Greg Gunlach, a professor of marketing at the University of North Florida was in Tallahassee to support a bill that would ban companies from placing restriction on the resell of paperless tickets.

“The real issues surround the restrictions associated with paperless ticketing. The American Anti-Trust Institute, along with my research, focuses on those types of restrictions and how they limit competition, consumer choice and welfare in the market place,” said Gunlach.

Opponents of the bill say placing more controls on how paperless tickets are resold cuts down on scalping and counterfeiting

A bill to allow lawmakers to privatize any function of state government without justifying the move emerged this week in Tallahassee.

The bill comes after last year’s plan to privatize 18 state prisons was ruled unconstitutional. To legally privatize a government function under current law, a cost-benefits analysis must be conducted. Police Benevolent Association spokesman Matt Puckett says this bill eliminates the analysis.

“There is a deliberated process in place to make sure that before we privatize we have all the facts and we are making an informed decision. This guts that. There is no reason to do it. Nothing has changed. And we are adamantly opposed to that,” said Puckett.

The bill was introduced alongside a renewed effort to privatize the prisons lawmakers were unsuccessful in outsourcing last year.

Citizens Insurance is making more than a dozen changes, lowering coverages and increasing deductibles, to reduce risk. The company also announced today that the insurer of last resort will transfer 17 thousand policies to a private insurer in February, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, higher rates may be the only thing that can keep the insurer solvent.

Citizens began 2012 with just under a million and a half policies.That is about twice the number of policies that should be expected for an insurer of last resort.

To make private insurance more attractive, deductibles are going up and insurance limits are going down. No longer will Citizens insure a home for more than a million dollars.

“The challenge of shrinking Citizens requires a dedicated and continuing effort to identify ways to reduce our exposure and policy count,” Scott Wallace, retiring Citizens chairman, said.

Legislation is being considered to lower the assessments that could be passed on to every Floridian if a major storm were to hit the state. Those assessments could cost average homeowners an extra 12 hundred dollars a year. But lowering them means paying more now.

The Citizens changes are almost certainly going to end up with higher bills in mailboxes, and the Governor who usually opposes raising costs, says this one is necessary.

“I have a house on the beach,” Governor Scott said. “I don’t believe that anyone should subsidize my property insurance. I made the decision to do that.”

In supporting higher Citizens rates, the Governor says its the classic case of pay me now or pay me later.

“We do want to make sure people can get insurance that people can afford,” Scott said.

In March, Citizens will also propose eliminating some coverages and requiring inspections on 30 year-old homes.

“I’d go back to my experience of working with supervisors in the past. They have the heavy burden of running the elections; it’s their responsibility. They are very talented, very resourceful, and I look forward to having a partnership with them, supporting them in anyway I can, and having a good election.”

The state is losing half a billion dollars a year to corporations moving their profits to subsidiary companies in other states with lower taxes. Another half a billion is escaping the state’s clutches through sales tax exemptions on more than a hundred items and services. As Whitney Ray tells us, efforts by Democrats are underway to close the loopholes and exemptions to help balance the state budget.

Surrounded by nurses, union members and small business owners, Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich explains how some businesses skirt Florida’s tax laws.

“Retailers escape their state tax obligations by transferring profits to certain types of subsidiaries set up in states that don’t tax certain types of income,” said Rich.

Democrats are pushing two bills that would allow the state to capture half a billion dollars a year being lost through corporate tax loopholes.

“For too long the corporations that benefit from the state have not paid their fair share and for too long ordinary people have been asked to bare too much of the burden,” said Rich.

The bill faces a tough battle in the Republican controlled House and Senate. Governor Rick Scott says no matter how you look at it, it’s a tax increase.

“That’s somebody’s money, and whether it comes from an individual or comes from a company, that takes money out of the economy,” said Scott.

Supporters of the bill say there’s another half a billion dollars being lost every year on items and services the state doesn’t tax. They include everything from bottled water to limousine rides. Representative Mark Pafford says the exemptions overwhelmingly benefit the rich.

“It’s a matter of reviewing more exemptions for skyboxes verses milk on a families table. It’s about fairness,” said Pafford.

The state is facing a two billion dollar budget shortfall. Eliminating the loopholes and exemptions would cut the deficit in half. Democrats didn’t name names at today’s news conference, but say mostly multi-state corporations use the loopholes and they put small Florida businesses at a disadvantage.

A four day bike tour ended at the state capitol today to raise awareness for cancer research. Four of the cyclists are cancer survivors.

The other bikers work at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. The center is hoping state lawmakers don’t cut research funding this session. Researcher Richard Lush says Moffitt needs the money to continue its search for a cure.

“One in every two American men and one out of every three American women are going to have a diagnosis of cancer in their lifetime. So you are looking at worst, one third of our population that are going to be affected by these diseases,” said Lush.

Moffitt will be competing with hundreds of other special interest groups this legislative session for a shrinking pie. The state budget is down two billion dollars.

State lawmakers are continuing their search for ways to improve STEM education. STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Today the presidents of UCF and USF told the House Education Committee how to improve STEM at their schools. Last week the committee heard a plan to charge more for STEM degrees in order to hire better professors. USF president Judy Genshaft says it’s a decent idea as long as low income students aren’t priced out of those degrees.

“If they could make some accommodation for those students then that is fine with me. We just have to be careful for those who are on Pell Grants,” said Genshaft.

UCF’s president John Hitt told committee members one way to encourage more students to pursue STEM degrees is to make Bright Futures pay more to students taking those classes.

Just a few months after a judge threw out legislative plans to privatize 18 prisons in South Florida, the proposal is back in front of lawmakers. The Senate Rules Committee reviewed privatization legislation today. Governor Rick Scott says if lawmakers following the traditional legislative steps to privatize the prisons they have his support.

“If you can have somebody else do a portion of your job more efficiently or at a better price you ought to be looking at that, but I haven’t seen that bill,” said Scott.

Last year’s privatization plan was ruled unconstitutional in September because they were passed using proviso language in the 2011 state budget.

Governor Rick Scott has picked a replacement for Secretary of State Kurt Browning. Browning tendered his resignation last week. Today Scott named Ken Detzner to replace him. Detzner served as interim secretary of state in 2003. He’s a beer lobbyist but says he’s willing to look over Florida’s elections.
Detzner will take over Feb 17th, after the presidential primary.

State Senators began debating senate and congressional voting maps on the chamber floor today. The once a decade redistricting task is catching extra attention this year because of new constitutional amendments requiring the districts be draw without favoring the party in power. As Whitney Ray tells us, the maps are expected to draw court challenges after the legislature passes them.

District three on the current Senate district map stretches from Tallahassee to Citrus County. District 27 runs from the Atlantic to the Gulf. On the new senate map districts are more compact and fewer counties and cities are split in two.

The reason: in 2010, Florida voters cast ballots to end gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to ensure the party in power wins more elections.

“It’s obvious that amendment five made a difference,” said Senator John Thrasher.

Lawmakers must redraw the house, senate and congressional voting maps ever 10 years. The current senate map drawn in 2002 leaves only 22 counties whole. The new map keeps 36 counties intact.

The state House and Senate maps have to be reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court and it’s likely the congressional map will end up here as well. Democrat Maria Sachs says even though the maps look more compact, but that’s not necessarily the case.

“It’s going to end up in the courts and that is probably where it should be,” said Sachs.

Senate Redistricting Chairman Don Gatez says this has been the most transparent reapportionment process in the state’s history.

“June 6th was the first of 32 times this committee has invited proposals from these groups and from Floridians,” said Gaetz