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Florida’s House Speaker is ordering a review of the BP Gulf Coast Claims System.

The BP Oil Leak created economic hardships for thousand of Floridians. To make up for the damage, BP is shelling out 20 billion dollars. So far 1.2 billion has been distributed, but getting paid hasn’t been easy. House Speaker Dean Cannon has appointed Dorothy Hukill, Chair of the Economic Affairs Committee, to head up the review of the claims process.

“He wants us to number one identify the problem, which means we will have to reach out to people, see what there experiences have been, what concerns have been raised. I know I’ve heard some of them, but I need to hear more. From there we can figure out what role the state can play and if there is a solution on our part,” said Hukill.

68-thousand claimants have been paid so far. Thousands more are hoping to receive checks.

Florida’s state run Citizens Property Insurance is flooded with new customers adding an increased risk to all Floridians. The state run insurer now has 1.3 million customers, up 200-thousand customers from a year ago. As Whitney Ray tells us, lawmakers are looking for ways to convince more insurance companies to take Citizens policies.

State Farm is dropping customers they feel are too risky. When the company is finished 125-thousand Floridians will be forced to find new coverage. A spokesman for the company refused to talk about the policy purge on camera.

As private insurers drop the riskiest policies, a crisis is being created in Florida. Most of those homeowners are ending up in state run Citizen’s Property Insurance. There are now 1.3 million Citizen’s customers, up 200-thousand from a year ago. Sinkholes in central Florida are partially to blame. Fraud and artificially low rates are the other culprits.

House Insurance Committee Chairman Bryan Nelson says state lawmakers can fix two of those problems.

“We really don’t want premiums to go up, but we need to have enough money in reserves to pay the claims when the next storm hits,” said Nelson.

Industry experts say the state could cut down on fraud by paying claims in phases.

“Get Florida law the way it is in every other state. You get some money up front when you sign the contract to fix your house and when you fix your house you get the rest of it,” said Sam Miller with Florida Insurance Council.

If things aren’t changed and a hurricane wipes out thousands of Citizens properties, all Floridians will be forced to pay claims through increased assessments on their home and auto insurance.

Insurance reform legislation was vetoed by Former Governor Charlie Crist the last two years in a row. Crist didn’t like a prevision in the bill allowing insurers to raise rates up to 10 percent a year without state approval.

The scrutiny over a new 48 million dollar courthouse built with some of the same luxuries as a five star resort continues.

Today state senators grilled court administrators over the lavish spending on the First District Court of Appeal building in Tallahassee. The new courthouse is fitted with a gym, kitchens, private bathrooms and dozens of 60 inch flat screen TVs. Chairman of the Civil Justice Appropriations Committee Mike Fasano wants to move the Justice Administration into the new courthouse to make better use of the space.

“I’d like to see about moving them over to the First District Court of Appeal as well. They have right now 78 state employees and they are working these 78 in a facility of 12-thousand square foot, and yet we just built a 100-thousand square foot facility for just over a hundred employees,” said Fasano.

Fasano hopes to save close to a million dollars a year by moving as many state employees as he can into the new building.

More than two billion federal dollars from a commuter rail between Tampa and Orlando are in jeopardy as the state decides how to come up with it’s portion of funding for the project.

The total cost of the high speed rail project is estimated at 2.7 billion dollars. The federal government is offering Florida 2.4 billion, but only if the state can come up with the extra 280 million to finish the project.

Governor Rick Scott and State Senator Mike Haridopolos want the private sector, not taxpayers, to cough up the extra cash. Haridopolos says if investors won’t take the risk then the state sure shouldn’t.

If the state can’t come up with the money soon, the federal government could give Florida’s portion to another state more willing to invest in high speed rail.

Two conflicting reports this week paint drastically different pictures of state and local pension funds in Florida. The state system has been ranked one of the best in the nation,  but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, employees who don’t make a contribution to the plan may see that changing…soon.

The State Pension fund lost less during the recession than the overall market, and it recovered more quickly. Still a Senate panel seems destined to making changes to the system. Chairman Jeremy Ring says everything from vesting time to lowering pensions for judges is on the table, but he is zeroing in on employee contributions.

“We’re one of the last states in the country that doesn’t have a contribution,” Ring said.  “While I think everything is on the table, and I don’t have the number, I can pretty much feel confident that a core part of this discussion is going to be employee contribution.”

Fire, police and teachers appeared at the meeting, arguing the system isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing at their expense.

“Not many people could stay in a career with five years without a pay raise,” Jim Biardi with the Police Benevolent Association said.  “And now you’re asking them to give up again?”

The AFL-CIO argues making employees pay even a portion of their contribution will have a ripple effect on the economy.

“These are the people that need to shop at the local businesses, that need to patronize your communities,” Rich Templin, with the Florida AFL-CIO, said.

But as far as the Senate is concerned, momentum is building for requiring employees to chip in perhaps as much as 6 percent of the salary.

“If you throw out the number 6 percent, which I’m not saying is the number, it’s very different to the 20,000 dollar school bus driver than it is to the 100,000 dollar DMS workers,” Ring said.

Since June, the state Pension fund has increased by 9 billion dollars, even after paying out a billion and a half to retirees.

A major gaming expansion is on the table in Florida as lawmakers begin to weigh the pros and cons of bringing Las Vegas Style Casino Resorts to the Sunshine State. The conversation begins almost a year after the legislature gave exclusive rights to expanded gambling to the Seminole Tribe. As Whitney Ray tells us, breaking the compact could cost Florida a billion dollars.

As players at Florida’s seven Seminole Casinos are enjoying Black-Jack and other new games brought on by a state compact with the tribe.…

High rollers from Las Vegas are in Tallahassee to get a piece of the action. Tuesday two major gaming companies asked lawmakers to change state law to allow Vegas-style resort casinos in Florida.

Andrew Abboud, A Vice President at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, says an expansion would bring thousands of jobs to the state.

“Within our property we have three hundred to four hundred entrepreneurs that own shops or restaurants. So we may have nine or ten thousand of our direct employees and we’ll have tenets who employ another five thousand people,” said Abboud.

A gaming expansion could help heal Florida’s anemic budget, but many aren’t ready to take that gamble. Sands Corporation representatives met briefly with Governor Rick Scott. Scott’s neutral on an expansion, but doesn’t want to rely on gaming revenues to balance the budget.

“I do not want the budget to be tied to gaming,” said Scott.

The state collects 400 million from gambling every year. Over the next five years a billion will come from giving exclusive rights to the Seminole Tribe. But if the state gambles on new casinos, they’ll lose the Seminole money.

In the middle once again are the state’s 27 businesses that offer racing along with slots and some card games. They’re back at the capitol to make sure an expansion for Vegas style casino resorts doesn’t leave them holding bad cards.

Florida’s lowest paid workers are being denied a raise guaranteed to them by the state constitution. In 2004 Floridians voted 3-to-1 for the state’s minimum wage to rise with the cost of living.

That means on January 1st, minimum wage should have increased to 7 dollars and 31 cents. Damien Filer with Progress Florida says adding insult to injury that the governor and legislative leaders are paying new staff thousands more than previous leaders paid.

“Right now they are six cents under that requirement. A mere six cents and they are refusing to do it. Yet at the same time we’ve got new state leaders, the governor and leaders of the legislature who are hiring political appointees at six figure salaries and turning around and tell the voters we have to tighten our belts,” said Filer.

188-thousand Floridians earn minimum wage. The National Employment Law Project and Florida Legal Services are filing suit against the state in an effort to force the Scott administration to issue the mandated raise.

Acts by mentally unstable people against Government officials are rare but not uncommon, and Florida politicians experience threats on a regular basis. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, most say it comes with the job.

State Senator Ronda storms is a lightening rod for conservative issues. Last year, after voting yes on a controversial bill creating merit pay for teachers, she received a threatening voice mail. It wasn’t her first threat.

“The first time it happened to me, I got a concealed weapons permit, and I bought a weapon, and I carry a weapon,” says Storms.

In 1999, then House speaker John Thrasher received a death threat. It came, says Thrasher “Iin the form of a post card and it had some pretty graphic language in it about what they thought they were going to do to me and they know where my children lived. And that was the real scary part”

Visitors to Florida’s Capitol undergo rigorous security checks. Camera’s monitor doorways and hallways. Enter wearing a buttoned up coat and you’ll be asked to open it for inspection. And it you were to walk into this building with a sealed envelope, Capitol police would make you leave the building…open it, and then come back in.

Inside and outside the building, the Governor and Lt Governor are protected 24/7. While somewhat rare, legislators and other state officials are provided with security details when threats are credible.

“You evaluate the level of the threat and then you investigate it”, says Dennis Bustle, Director of Capitol Police.

While it is uncommon for most threats to be acted upon, public officials being threatened has become a part of public service at all levels of government.

Help may be on the way for businesses hurt economically by last summers oil leak in the Gulf. Legislation by State Senator Don Gaetz (Gates) cleared the first of three hurdles in the state Senate this morning to make sure the impact of any future spill is minimized. It directs the Governor’s office of Tourism, trade, and Economic Development to help NW Florida. Gaetz is also trying to make sure the panhandle gets the biggest benefit from any settlement cash.

“It directs OTTED to provide a series of economic incentives to companies that want  to come to Northwest Florida from other states, so that we can diversify our economy. More over, the bill sets up a state policy that says when fine and settlement dollars come through the federal government from BP, that seventy-five percent of that money will be spent in coastal northwest Florida and twenty five percent of it would be spent elsewhere, rather than the other way around.”

The legislation also provides ten million dollars for marketing the panhandle to out of state tourists…and keeping the cash in the bill may be its sponsors biggest challenge given tight state revenues.

This week dueling reports painted both a rosy and bleak picture for Florida’s public employee pension fund. Getting to the truth is the subject of a committee hearing on Wednesday in the State Senate. Senator Jeremy Ring says it is time to put campaign promises aside and get to the truth.

“We want it fact based, the rhetoric that’s out there, I call it campaign rhetoric, and the reality is that you have to look at those buckets. You have to look at defined contributions. You have to look at employees contributing, you have to look at vesting periods and multipliers, So everything is on the table, but actually putting the numbers behind it, that has to be fact based.”

Florida’s pension fund has been recognized nationally as one of the four best in the country.

An FSU sorority girl is dead after an accidental shooting at a fraternity house this weekend. The shooter, 20 year old Ryan Wilhelm is being charged with manslaughter. As Whitney Ray tells us, the tragedy hits as state lawmakers consider legislation to allow people with permits to carry guns on college campuses.

Over a closed circuit TV signal, 20 year old Evan Wilhelm had his first appearance in court. Wilhelm faces a manslaughter charge for the accidental shooting death of FSU Sophomore Ashley Cowie.

Wilhelm was showing his rifle to a group of friends at his fraternity house Sunday morning, when the weapon discharged, sending a round through Ashley’s chest. She died on the scene. FSU students are shocked at the news.

“My condolences go out to her sorority, her family. It’s just tragic that she had to die so young,” said Jessica Beaugris, a FSU Senior.

While students are mourning the loss of one of their classmates, state lawmakers are working on legislation to allow people with permits to carry guns on campus.

NRA Lobbyist Marion Hammer says the shooting shouldn’t slow down the legislation. She points out that it happened off campus in a fraternity house were guns are banned. Hammer says the legislation is about self-defense.

“With shootings on campus, they are essentially a gun free zone and in a gun free zone the good guys don’t have a chance,” said Hammer.

The bill would only allow people with conceal carry permits, who must be 21, to carry guns. It wouldn’t allow guns to be stored in dorms. Still, sophomore Josh Orendorf doesn’t like it.

“If I’m not carrying a gun then there is less of a chance that I’m going to be involved in any shooting at all and I think it’s the same for everyone involved,” said Josh.

Sadly for Ashley the current campus ban on guns as well as the fraternity’s ban weren’t enough save her life. Wilhelm was released on 25-thousand dollars bond early this morning. The victim, Ashley Crowie was also 20 and a sophomore. She was a member of the Chi Omega Sorority.

If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it: that’s the message Florida’s largest public labor union is sending Governor Rick Scott.

Scott wants to revamp the state pension fund and force government workers to pay into the plan. The AFL-CIO says Florida’s pension fund is one of the healthiest in the nation, but Scott says there’s trouble around the corner if things aren’t changed. Ray Edmonsdon with the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association says he’s perplexed that anyone wants to change the current system.

“There’s nothing wrong with these systems and to talk about pension reform, they are reforming a system that’s not broken. So I have no idea what’s going on there, but there’s nothing the legislature can do to make these systems any better,” said Edmonsdon.

More than a million Floridians rely on the pension fund for their retirement. There’s more than a hundred billion dollars in the fund.

State lawmakers are looking for ways to kick illegal immigrants out of Florida.

State Senators and House members invited the public to Tallahassee this afternoon to discuss solutions. Some estimates show as many as one million illegal immigrants living in Florida. Gaby Pachecl is a legal citizen from Miami. She fears too much reform could lead to racial profiling.

“We have already seen the evidence of racial profiling happening in Florida in very small incenses and we have had the opportunity through the law to protect those people, but now this law is going to give a green light to those cases of racial profiling to occur,” said Pachecl.

The three hour meeting was scheduled just to gather information, but legislation to allow police officer to check immigration status has already been filed.

The Florida Highway Patrol stepped up enforcement this holiday season in anticipation for more drivers on the road. Nearly 500 DUI arrests were made during that 19-day period over Christmas and the New Year, and 1300 got roadside help as a result of the effort. Captain Mark Welch says  the extra enforcement can be necessary during one of the busiest traveling seasons.

“A lot of people are on the road traveling to go visit relatives to spend that holiday time with their families. So there’s a little more traffic on the road so its important for our members to be out there enforcing our laws to make sure they make it their safely.”

The troopers also issued almost 41,000 overall citations, down slightly from last year.

Governor Rick Scott has begun his administration by making it clear he will push hard for education reform.  Merit pay and the end of tenure, and even vouchers for all could be on the agenda. Scott signaled his intentions when he took his first road trip as Governor.

As Scott took off in his private jet on his first road trip as Governor, his intentions could not have been more clear. Scott toured a successful Miami Charter School.

The push is being met with cheers or skepticism across the state. At this Tallahassee high school,  moral is suffering.

“They’re casting a pall over the teachers in the sense that it’s just so negative, when a lot of what we do is not negative,” guidance counselor Jerry Hassler said.

If given a free hand, Scott would create a wide-open voucher program, giving students state money to attend any school anywhere.

The biggest obstacle to Scott’s most ambitious reforms may not be teachers or teacher unions, but the Florida Supreme Court.

The court ruled vouchers unconstitutional in 2006. Scott’s transition team has recommended changing the constitution. But he says the idea is still on the drawing board.

“I clearly want to have as much choice as possible,” Scott said. “I believe competition will make all of us better. I believe the more our schools compete, they’ll get better. So I’ll look at that down the road.”

For Scott, there is not rush. Asking voters to change the constitution isn’t to likely to  happen before the 2012 election, and that gives him time to make changes in small bites.

Teachers unions say they are willing to work with the Governor to find a fair way to implement merit pay. They are certain to draw a line in the sand over a massive voucher expansion envisioned by Scott.