Rick Scott Signs Terrible Law Expanding Florida DCF’s Power

One of the least desirable features of a representative democracy is that often, poorly thought out legislation is rammed through with little thought as a gross overreaction to immediate public outrage. Such is the case with the child welfare law signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott today. The gist of this story is that the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) has come under substantial public criticism for an investigative series of stories first published by the Miami Herald which revealed that 477 children have died child abuse related deaths in the last five years. The report criticized the agency for, among other things, failing to notice obvious signs of abuse in children under their care. Predictably, the response that has been ramroded through the Florida legislature is to, essentially, give lots more money and sweeping new authority to the agency directly responsible for the SNAFU that caused the public uproar in the first place:

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott signed a sweeping bill Monday aimed at overhauling the child-welfare system after hundreds of child abuse-related deaths in the past five years.

The new law calls for a fundamental shift in the way the Department of Children and Families investigates and responds to cases. It clearly states that protecting a child from abuse is paramount and more important than keeping a family together. In the past, DCF has placed a premium on putting fewer children in foster care and, instead, offering family services while the child remains at home.
* * *
The law will fund jobs for 270 additional child protective investigators to reduce caseloads. It also establishes a response team to quickly investigate child abuse deaths when the child had previous incidents with the system and adds a small amount of funding for at-risk families with young children. Child advocates said substance abuse treatment issues are at the heart of many child deaths.

The DCF, like the federal TSA, is wildly more popular as an abstract idea than it is as an agency, in particular among anyone who has the misfortune to run afoul of their workings in any sort of personal way. In the abstract, people like the idea that there should be an agency tasked with preventing child abuse and neglect. Where the rubber meets the road, however, nightmares almost invariably happen. Part of it has to do with the nature of the job – any time a stranger is tasked with confronting a parent about the way they are raising their child, ugly personal confrontations are bound to happen. Worse, in many cases, the social workers at DCF have to encounter legitimate, heart-rending abuse and witness children kept in conditions that would rend the heart of all but the most calloused of people. The combined pressures tend wash out the sort of thoughtful, compassionate, qualified social workers and instead self-selects for social workers who are either unqualified or incapable of finding employment elsewhere, or who dispositionally enjoy personal conflict, or who are at least mostly calloused to the suffering of children. In other words, the exact people who should be kept as far away from having the power to remove children from their families as possible.
As a result, state DCFs (or DCS as it may be known in your state) too often become neverending cavalcades of horror stories where hordes of legitimate abuse cases go inadequately or incompetently investigated, all while DCF caseworkers become unwitting foot soldiers in countless divorce vendettas. As just one example of the problems infesting state child welfare agencies, it has long been shown that minority families are disproportionately likely to be reported to DCF for investigation; but moreover, even among the reported population, are disproportionately likely to have their children removed to foster care - which is not the hallmark of an agency that is thoughtfully pursuing their work.

At a glance, many aspects of this legislation, such as improving training and quality of case workers, are admirable and cannot be gainsaid. But the bolded portion above, combined with a clear and sweeping monetary incentive to root out and find more abuse, will be the root of untold measures of evil. One of our most treasured principles as a Republic is the principle that, where possible and in the absence of a compelling contrary interest, children should be raised by their parents. Florida’s DCF now has a clear statutory provision to the contrary along with a huge budget and a mandate to find more abuse will, in the hands of an agency that has engendered well deserved distrust among almost everyone who has come in contact with them, lead to disaster.
Any conservatives who are lauding this decision should ask themselves this fundamental question – do you think this legislation, in the hands of the same DCF, will lead to less abuse? Or more horrors like those suffered by Justina Pelletier and her family?
Perhaps this is a question Rick Scott should have asked before signing this ill-advised legislation.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/23/rick-scott-signs-terrible-law-expanding-florida-dcfs-power/

Rick Scott Signs Terrible Law Expanding Florida DCF’s Power

Leaping from overreaction overreaction

 

One of the least desirable features of a representative democracy is that often, poorly thought out legislation is rammed through with little thought as a gross overreaction to immediate public outrage. Such is the case with the child welfare law signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott today. The gist of this story is that the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) has come under substantial public criticism for an investigative series of stories first published by the Miami Herald which revealed that 477 children have died child abuse related deaths in the last five years. The report criticized the agency for, among other things, failing to notice obvious signs of abuse in children under their care. Predictably, the response that has been ramroded through the Florida legislature is to, essentially, give lots more money and sweeping new authority to the agency directly responsible for the SNAFU that caused the public uproar in the first place:

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott signed a sweeping bill Monday aimed at overhauling the child-welfare system after hundreds of child abuse-related deaths in the past five years.

The new law calls for a fundamental shift in the way the Department of Children and Families investigates and responds to cases. It clearly states that protecting a child from abuse is paramount and more important than keeping a family together. In the past, DCF has placed a premium on putting fewer children in foster care and, instead, offering family services while the child remains at home.
* * *
The law will fund jobs for 270 additional child protective investigators to reduce caseloads. It also establishes a response team to quickly investigate child abuse deaths when the child had previous incidents with the system and adds a small amount of funding for at-risk families with young children. Child advocates said substance abuse treatment issues are at the heart of many child deaths.

 

The DCF, like the federal TSA, is wildly more popular as an abstract idea than it is as an agency, in particular among anyone who has the misfortune to run afoul of their workings in any sort of personal way. In the abstract, people like the idea that there should be an agency tasked with preventing child abuse and neglect. Where the rubber meets the road, however, nightmares almost invariably happen. Part of it has to do with the nature of the job – any time a stranger is tasked with confronting a parent about the way they are raising their child, ugly personal confrontations are bound to happen. Worse, in many cases, the social workers at DCF have to encounter legitimate, heart-rending abuse and witness children kept in conditions that would rend the heart of all but the most calloused of people. The combined pressures tend wash out the sort of thoughtful, compassionate, qualified social workers and instead self-selects for social workers who are either unqualified or incapable of finding employment elsewhere, or who dispositionally enjoy personal conflict, or who are at least mostly calloused to the suffering of children. In other words, the exact people who should be kept as far away from having the power to remove children from their families as possible.

As a result, state DCFs (or DCS as it may be known in your state) too often become neverending cavalcades of horror stories where hordes of legitimate abuse cases go inadequately or incompetently investigated, all while DCF caseworkers become unwitting foot soldiers in countless divorce vendettas. As just one example of the problems infesting state child welfare agencies, it has long been shown that minority families are disproportionately likely to be reported to DCF for investigation; but moreover, even among the reported population, are disproportionately likely to have their children removed to foster care - which is not the hallmark of an agency that is thoughtfully pursuing their work.
At a glance, many aspects of this legislation, such as improving training and quality of case workers, are admirable and cannot be gainsaid. But the bolded portion above, combined with a clear and sweeping monetary incentive to root out and find more abuse, will be the root of untold measures of evil. One of our most treasured principles as a Republic is the principle that, where possible and in the absence of a compelling contrary interest, children shoudl be raised by their parents. Florida’s DCF now has a clear statutory provision to the contrary along with a huge budget and a mandate to find more abuse will, in the hands of an agency that has engendered well deserved distrust among almost everyone who has come in contact with them, lead to disaster.
Any conservatives who are lauding this decision should ask themselves this fundamental question – do you think this legislation, in the hands of the same DCF, will lead to less abuse? Or more horrors like those suffered by Justina Pelletier and her family?
Perhaps this is a question Rick Scott should have asked before signing this ill-advised legislation.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/23/rick-scott-signs-terrible-law-expanding-florida-dcfs-power/

Local Lawmakers Grapple With Changing The Culture At DCF

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – Both chambers of the Legislature took up child-welfare reform Tuesday, hearing from a wide range of experts with research about staff turnover and caseloads.

But one number stood out: 432, the number of Florida children who died of abuse and neglect in 2012, according to Pam Graham, a social work professor at Florida State University.
Graham, who spoke to the House Healthy Families Subcommittee, served on the State Child Abuse Death Review Committee. Of the 432 children who died in 2012, she said, 40 percent were already involved with the Department of Children and Families.
“It pains me that if the right people had been helping those families, a lot of the deaths could have been prevented,” Graham said.
The number of child deaths usually mentioned in legislative committees is 40, the number that the Casey Family Programs, a policy group, reviewed after a series of child deaths last year.
And that’s how many it took to prompt legislative leaders to vow to overhaul the child-welfare system.
“The public is crying out to us to have revolutionary reform,” said Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee. “We don’t want to keep reading about children’s deaths. …However, we’re going to do it in a pragmatic way, step by step.”
Sobel’s panel and the House Healthy Families Subcommittee examined such steps as requiring all new child-protective investigators to have social-work degrees and helping the current investigators get such degrees.
Not everyone who spoke to the lawmakers agreed on how to fix the workplace culture at DCF, but virtually all said it had to be done.
“The thing that we keep coming back to is a lack of fraternity,” Mike Watkins, chief executive officer of Big Bend Community Based Care, told the Senate panel.
To the House panel, Mary Alice Nye, of the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy and Government Accountability, said child-protective investigators report feeling pressured to close cases within a 30-day window and to get all of their work done without filing for overtime pay.
The investigators “felt that they were less and less able to use their knowledge and expertise in decision-making,” Nye said.
They also reported spending 50 to 80 percent amount of their time on administrative tasks and expressed concern about going into homes where there had been violence, difficulty in getting law enforcement officers to meet them there and using their own cars for work, which could identify them in small communities.
“They generally indicated they felt support from their immediate (supervisor) but not from DCF or the lead (community-based care) agencies,” Nye said.
DCF Interim Secretary Esther Jacobo said a program to pair child-protective investigators was being piloted in cases where a child is 3 years old or younger, has a prior DCF history and other family risk factors such as domestic violence, mental illness or substance abuse.
Jacobo said the pilot has been so successful that it will go statewide. Gov. Rick Scott has recommended hiring 400 additional child protective investigators, bringing their caseloads down to 10 apiece.
Sobel said it’s important for state agencies to be more consistent.
“Stop the turnover and create a workforce that likes where they’re working and enjoys what they do and accomplishes a lot,” she said. “For the sake of the kids, we have to do this.”
According to OPPAGA, the turnover for child-protective investigators in Florida is 20 percent. For the case managers who provide services at the local level, it’s 30 percent.
“The News Service of Florida’s Margie Menzel contributed to this report.”

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/02/11/lawmakers-grapple-with-changing-the-culture-at-dcf/

Scott Seeks $31 Million Bump In DCF Funding For Child Protection

Gov. Scott to propose increased funds for child protection

By Mary Ellen Klas

Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

“Editor’s Note: We believe the constant flow of federal funding is the very reason that CPS is so corrupt. They are ALREADY taking/stealing children for baseless reasons and destroying families each and every day. A pay increase and promotion only pushes them to steal more children.”

In an effort to repair his child welfare track record, Gov. Rick Scott will announce Tuesday in Miami that he is steering $31 million in additional money to child protection efforts, a move aimed at reducing caseloads and increasing oversight of vulnerable children in Florida.

Ticky Ricky

The announcement comes in the wake of dozens of child deaths from abuse and neglect in the past year, and amid calls for reform of the Department of Children & Families from the non-profit Casey Family Foundation and Democrats in the Legislature.
“While DCF has made significant changes to protect children, we still have much to do to protect the most vulnerable among us,’’ the governor said in a statement on Monday. “Even one child death is a death too many.”
The governor will also announce that he will steer an additional $8 million to sheriff’s offices to investigate child abuse complaints, a turnabout for the governor who recommended a $17 million reduction in the grants to sheriffs for child protective efforts in his 2013-14 budget proposal.
The governor’s proposal, which is only a recommendation to the Legislature, includes restoring money for Substance Abuse and Mental Health programs, services that play a vital role in reducing child abuse, the agency said in a statement released to the Herald/Times on Monday.
The governor said his “historic increase to DCF funding” will pay for the hiring of 400 additional child protective investigators. The proposal also aims to reduce caseloads for child protective investigators from the current 13.3 cases per investigator to 10, and institute two-person teams in cases involving children under age 4 when the family has a history of domestic violence, substance abuse or mental illness, the statement said.
The program would be modeled after a pilot program DCF is currently running using paired investigators for high-risk cases in Miami-Dade and Polk counties.
DCF interim Secretary Esther Jacobo said she is confident the proposals “will keep Florida children safe.”

DCF interim Secretary Esther Jacobo

“Armed with input from national experts and data to back up our proposals, we are prepared to ensure that these funds will be laser focused on protecting children who are most at-risk,” Jacobo said in the statement.
The governor’s recommendation also includes restoring 26 of the 72 quality assurance positions that were cut under former DCF Secretary David Wilkins. Child advocates blame those cuts for contributing to some of the child deaths.
Another 50 current investigator positions would be eligible for career advancement under a new “Child Protective Master Practitioner” plan that would reward case workers with the most knowledge and experience.
The Casey Family Programs reviewed 40 child deaths last year and concluded that both DCF and community-based care organizations should focus more resources on providing services aimed at stabilizing families to prevent abuse.
The governor’s track record in his previous budget requests to the Legislature has been to reduce funding to the child welfare agency. In his first budget proposal in the 2011-12 budget year, for example, the governor recommended reducing funding for DCF by $238 million below its current levels at the time.
In 2011-12, Scott recommended increasing the agency budget by $1.7 million over the level approved by lawmakers a year before but, in 2013-14, he recommended reducing the budget again — by $75.7 million — below what lawmakers had approved the year before.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/13/3869179/gov-scott-to-propose-increased.html#storylink=cpy

The raw truth about
power and ambition in Florida.

Florida Pays $800K To Fix Governor’s Mansion

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/AP) — Did you know your hard-earned tax dollars are paying for upgrades at Gov. Rick Scott’s Tallahassee mansion? Gov. Scott has repeatedly pledged to slash government spending since his 2010 election yet more than $800,000 has been spent for substantial improvements to the Greek Revival mansion where he and his wife live.

Taxpayers have footed the bill for things like the cleaning of oriental rugs and refinishing the oak flooring at “the People’s House,” a sprawling edifice at 700 North Adams Street that serves as private residence as well as official entertainment venue for the state’s chief executive. Some money, though, has come from lobbyists and corporate donors with business before Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Nearly $3 million was spent during Jeb Bush’s eight years in office, but that included some expensive, post-9/11 security upgrades. And what has been spent under Scott far exceeds the money spent while Charlie Crist was in office.
Most of the money spent on the mansion— nearly $600,000 — has come from taxpayers and goes toward upkeep of the grounds and what is called the “public side” of the mansion, which includes the garden and rooms where public receptions are held.
But more than $200,000 spent on both public rooms and on the personal quarters used by the Scott family came from a handful of the state’s most powerful companies. Records from the Governor’s Mansion Foundation show that U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida each donated $100,000.

On top of that came $20,000 gifts from fundraiser and lobbyist Brian Ballard; Scott’s political adviser, Tony Fabrizio; and George Zoley, the CEO of private prison company The GEO Group, which runs two Florida penitentiaries.
House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, questioned the state spending money on the mansion while it has been pushing cutbacks elsewhere.
“Maybe the first place in government cutbacks is where you are staying at,” said Thurston.
Thurston also said he was surprised to hear about private donations for the mansion and said he doubted anyone in the public was aware of it.
“There’s a real concern there,” said Thurston. “What are they expecting to receive from their contributions?”
Scott, a multi-millionaire who owns a mansion in southwest Florida, did not put any of his own money to the renovation effort, although foundation records show that he and his wife donated furniture, lamps and exercise equipment valued at more than $93,000.

I want your tax dollars for myself

Scott spokeswoman Melissa Sellers would not answer questions about whether accepting private money might risk posing a conflict of interest. Her answer in an email was that “mansion foundation members raise money.”
Located 10 blocks north of the Capitol building, the governor’s mansion is hidden from view by aging commercial properties that sit along a Tallahassee main street. Large iron gates block the street in front of the mansion, keeping visitors away. Ballard said he was glad to make his 2011 donation, which came at a time when there were discussions of using the private money to help purchase the commercial property. The idea was to create a kind of “mansion park” that might qualify as a national historical landmark.
“I believe in Tallahassee and I live here,” Ballard said. “I think we should more things to make Tallahassee a special place. Rick Scott certainly doesn’t need money from me. If they asked again, I would do it again. And I would do it if it were for Gov. (Bob) Graham, Gov. (Lawton) Chiles or Gov. Crist.”
The long list of renovations to the governor’s mansion includes a $2,000 mirror for first lady Ann Scott’s bathroom and $38,000 in new rugs. Private money paid for those items. The mansion also boasts new wallpaper, pillows, furniture, drapes, paint, window repairs, new screens for the swimming pool and an upgraded kitchen.

First lady Ann Scott

The amount of public money spent on the mansion the last three years far exceeds what was spent between 2007 and 2011, when Crist was governor. State records show slightly more than $27,000 was spent during Crist’s term, although he spent most weekends outside Tallahassee.
Nearly $3 million was spent between 1999 and 2007 when Bush was governor, but that includes nearly $1 million to acquire property near the mansion and to close the street due to security concerns.
Ben Wolf, a spokesman for the Department of Management Services, said improvements paid for by taxpayers were for historical preservation, to improve health and safety and for routine maintenance of the 60-year-old building. For example, Wolf said, the walls and ceilings hadn’t been painted in more than 15 years.
Wolf said that the repairs were undertaken after an assessment by DMS, which manages real estate owned by the state among other functions. The improvements were not done at anyone’s request, Wolf said.
Melissa Sellers, a spokeswoman for Scott, also said that neither the governor nor the first lady requested any renovations.

But minutes from a May 2011 meeting of the Governor’s Mansion Commission— the state panel that assures the home maintains its original structure and character — show that first lady Ann Scott voiced concern about the home’s condition to state officials.
“It’s important to me to maintain its beauty and showcase its history, making the mansion a welcome destination for all guests,” said the first lady, who had run her own interior design business before her husband was elected and has pushed to make the mansion more available to public events.
Carol Beck, mansion manager and curator, was quoted as telling the group that top DMS officials “have been exceptionally proactive in addressing concerns of the first lady and myself as it relates to the current condition of the interior and exterior of the mansion proper, as well as the grounds.”
Sellers said that Ann Scott has been traveling a lot lately to spend time with her grandchildren and unavailable for questions about the mansion.
Meanwhile, Scott — who just announced he would seek to cut another $100 million in “government waste” next year — is known to be a strong supporter of the costly renovation to The Grove Plantation, the 180-year-old historic home of the late Gov. LeRoy Collins. It sits on a 10-acre site adjoining the governor’s mansion and could be opened to the public as soon as next year.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/10/28/florida-pays-800k-to-fix-governors-mansion/

Governor Phony Rick Scott?

 

Fourteen months from the next election, Gov. Rick Scott’s sales pitch is clear. He portrays himself as the education governor, the defender of the environment and the advocate for open records. He’s the jobs governor, and he has empathy for Floridians without health coverage. Don’t be fooled by the packaging. It’s a facade that hides reality, and Florida deserves better.

Education
Scott organized a three-day summit last week to tackle controversies over the coming Common Core State Standards and the discredited school accountability system now in place. He promotes the $1 billion in new money public schools received this year and his effort to give teachers raises.
The reality is Scott failed to show up at his own summit to listen to the concerns of school superintendents and others. Instead he ate dinner privately with former Gov. Jeb Bush, whose passion for education is unquestioned even if some of his views are controversial.
This year’s per student funding is the highest of Scott’s three years as governor. But it is still lower than each of the five previous years under his predecessors, Charlie Crist and Bush. Scott also signed into law the legislation that siphons off school construction money to privately run charter schools. And the governor’s last two hand-picked education commissioners have shown more interest in advocating for charter schools and expanding voucher programs than in creating successful public schools.
Now there is another interim education commissioner, and the revolving door in Tallahassee leaves local school districts without clear direction from the state. Will Scott fold on Common Core and the student assessments needed to make them work?
Environment
The governor staged another media show last week to promote a worthy project to improve water flow into Everglades National Park. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage he has done to the environment.
The governor decimated growth management and eliminated the agency that enforced it. He fought the federal government over clean-water standards, neutered the water management districts by slashing their tax base and manipulated the regulatory process to put politics above science. His money for Florida’s springs is hardly meaningful. The deal he cut with the federal government on restoring the Everglades put the deadline off again. And to raise money to buy sensitive lands, the state’s solution is to sell land it already owns.
Scott is still looking at toll roads to nowhere across the middle of Florida. The state still has no cohesive energy policy. And the governor’s environmental agency is more focused on quickly approving the requests of developers than on protecting wetlands. A news conference on one worthy project cannot mask years of bad policy.
Jobs
Scott inaccurately claims he is more than halfway toward meeting his pledge of creating 700,000 jobs, and he keeps cranking out the news releases. Last week: 100 jobs at Boeing in Miami; 105 new air cargo jobs in Orlando; 200 jobs at technology company Citrix in Fort Lauderdale. The week before that: 40 jobs at the moving and storage company PODS in Clearwater.
Many of the jobs Scott counts won’t be created for years, if ever, and the bigger picture is darker. The state’s unemployment rate has been stuck at 7.1 percent for three months, better than the national average of 7.4 percent. A report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the labor force expanded in the Tampa Bay area, Jacksonville and Orlando in the past year but in other areas — South Florida, the Panhandle, Bradenton, Sarasota and Lakeland — the labor force contracted. And the jobless rate in Pasco and Hernando counties is still 8 percent or higher.
Scott’s heavy-handed attempt to lure companies from other states is a public relations nightmare, and it isn’t working. While Florida now has roughly as many jobs as before the recession, people earn less and there are more part-time jobs. Jobs in the low-paying leisure and hospitality sectors are up. Better paying jobs in construction, manufacturing and professional/business services are still down.
The bottom line: The job situation is not nearly as rosy as Scott projects.
Health care
After Florida failed to persuade the courts to block health care reform, Scott called for the state to accept billions in federal dollars and expand Medicaid to 1 million uninsured residents. “I cannot, in good conscience, deny Floridians the needed access to health care,” he declared in February.
Then he stopped listening to his conscience. Scott sat by as House Speaker Will Weatherford blocked expansion, and he has dropped the issue. What the governor has done is reject millions in federal dollars to implement health care reform and left the creation of an insurance exchange to the federal government. He also foolishly signed into law a ban on state regulation of health insurance rates for two years.
New U.S. Census figures show nearly 1 in 4 Floridians lack health insurance, the second highest rate in the nation. Hospitals in Orlando, Vero Beach and elsewhere are laying off workers and reducing pay in part because the new Medicaid dollars aren’t coming.
Scott isn’t expanding access to health care. He is working against it. He is making it harder for hospitals to make ends meet, harder for the uninsured to get coverage and harder for businesses to comply with the federal law.
Openness
Scott promised an unprecedented effort toward government transparency: Regular releases on the Internet of nearly all emails received or written by the governor and his top staff. The goal was to eventually extend the service, known as Project Sunburst, to Scott’s 11 agencies as well.
Sunburst has been a bust. Efforts to meet a seven-day window in posting emails to the site routinely goes unmet and are incomplete. Agencies were never added to the project and Scott and his aides avoid creating public records when they can. Scott’s chief of staff isn’t shy about reminding subordinates that anything they send to him by email is a public record. Contrast that with the first e-governor, Jeb Bush, who was such a believer in efficient communication his state portrait includes his Blackberry in the background.
It’s not just Sunburst. The governor also helped kill one of the most promising efforts for open government. He refused to take ownership of a software project, Transparency 2.0, that would have allowed the public to easily track how state government allocates and spends taxpayer money. The project died from neglect.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-governor-phony/2139239

Governor Rick Scott Is Still Hiding Money

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Guest Blogger •

This year the Florida Legislature passed a new blind trust law. The ink had not dried on Gov. Rick Scott’s signature before he decided to test the new law. Scott wanted to make sure the money he had made documented on his questionable personal portfolio was in line with the new law, a law that he and his Republican cronies helped write.

Rick Scott made sure he “stacked the deck” beforehand. According to the Tampa Bay Times, five of (the Ethics Commission) nine members (were) appointed by the governor. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said the panel’s general counsel Christopher Anderson, who added that Scott was “ahead of the game” in 2011 and complies with the new law.

Governor Rick Scott

Scott asked for the commission’s opinion to ensure the blind trust complies with a new law. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said Anderson.
The voting public conveniently forgets what Scott did. The Sun Sentinel reports that Scott perpetrated fraud that “ was and still is the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history and ended with the hospital giant Columbia/HCA paying a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.” Scott was co-founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, when the FBI launched a massive, multi-state investigation that led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government.
If fines and penalties of $1.7 Billion are any indication that big money was made then one must think there was a lot of it. Medicare insurance fraud is big money and Rick Scott made a bunch of it. The Tallahassee Democrat indicated that the amount of money that may have been made, “When Scott first sought office, he reported a net worth of $218 million, while the filing he turned in earlier this summer showed that his net worth was nearly $84 million as of the end of 2012.”
The fact that Scott refuses to take any money for being governor, 12-cents a year, allows him to do, basically, whatever he wants when filling out financial disclosure forms. It seems doubtful the state of Florida’s Republican Legislature really cares what he makes. The state is saving $130,00 in salary per year. NorthEscambia.com reported that “Gov. Rick Scott was worth $83.77 million as he wrapped up his second year in office, according to a newly posted financial disclosure form. The blind trust, which accounts for $72.8 million, made $3.1 million in interest last year.”
Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, questioned the independence of the blind trust since the company managing Scott’s account — Hollow Brook Wealth Management — included Scott’s portfolio manager for 10 years. An accountant at the company also worked for Scott for 12 years. Old cronies? It must depend on who’s asking.
The question here is not whether Scott is crooked but just how much of that crooked money did he keep? Think about it when standing in the voting booth next year.
http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/09/governor-rick-scott-still-hiding-money/

Finkelstein: Six Cops Should Be Charged For Bad Arrests.



Coral Springs Officer Tim Coker


BY BUDDY NEVINS
A Coral Springs Officer arrested a homeowner while he was negotiating a mortgage modification.  The officer then bought the house from the lender while the man was in jail.
Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said this week the case of Coral Springs Officer Tim Coker was just one of five alleged cases of police misconduct to justify unlawful arrests.
Finkelstein has asked State Attorney Mike Satz to prosecute the six officers.
In several cases, the officers were caught by using computer technology.
“We all know (what) has been happening to my clients for years – illegal and unjustified stops by law enforcement for DWB (driving while black)…Technology shed light on an ugly fact: some police officers lie to justify the means to an end,” Finkelstein wrote in a letter to Satz.
The cases of alleged wrongdoing by officers include :
* Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Marc Berman said he checked the tag of a vehicle on April 3 and found that the owner did not have a valid driver’s license, justifying a traffic stop.   The driver was arrested when the deputy claimed he found an active arrest warrant.

A check of the state archived report system in Tallahassee found that Berman never checked drivers license information prior to the traffic stop.
The case was dropped by prosecutors.
*  Hallandale Officer Chris Goulding said he stopped a van after a check of the tag indicated the driver had a suspended license.  The driver was jailed.
The van was registered to the driver’s wife, whose license was suspended.  There was no way for Goulding to know the driver also had a suspended license before the traffic stop.  A judge granted a motion to supress.
* Coral Springs Officer Tim Coker saw a man leaving a house and searched him. Several prescription drugs were found and the man was arrested.
The defendant had been in the house at the invitation of his wife.  He told the officer the couple was in negotiations with a bank to modify their mortgage.
“By arresting (the defendant), Officer Coker had prevented him from doing anything related to further negotiating with his mortgage lender,” states Finkelstein’s letter to Satz.
The defendant was arrested May 4, 2010.  A few months later while the defendant remained in jail, Coker contacted the lender and purchased the property out of foreclosure, according to the letter.
Coker refused to answer questions during a deposition about the house, saying it was his personal business.

“When presented with these facts, this case was dropped by the State. This case is also under review by the Coral Springs Police Department/Internal Affairs,” states Finkelstein’s letter.
* Fort Lauderdale Officers Ian Sandman and Jose Dejo said they ran the tags of a vehicle before stopping it and charging the driver with driving with a suspended license.
A check of the state system disclosed the tag was never run prior to the traffic stop.
The case was dismissed.
* Officer Jefferson Alvarez in a probable cause affidavit said that he observed the defendant in an abandoned gas station, ran the tag and found out the driver’s license was suspended.
The defendant’s explanation that he had pulled in to change a tire was ignored. He was arrested.
A check of the state system indicated another officer ran the tag.  A check of a GPS system indicated two officers arrived on the scene before Alvarez. The officers allowed Alverez to take credit for the arrest.
“I urge you to use the power conferred on you by virtue of your position to prosecute police officers who lie,” Finkelstein wrote to Satz.

http://www.browardbeat.com/finkelstein-six-cops-lied-and-should-be-charged/

The Florida Way, Corruption

May 8, 2011

When people think about political corruption they think of places like Chicago and New York but the number one state for corruption in America is Florida.  Florida has had more public officials found guilty of corruption than any other state in the last decade, a staggering 824 politicians. These are just the ones who got caught.
But the savvy politician does not have to break the law. They can simply set up a consulting company and circumvent every campaign law. It has become the Florida Way.


State Senator Mike Fasano



Consulting fees are nothing more than buying access to elected officials and obtaining political favors. Why do lawyers, engineers, and doctors give up their careers to make $30,000 a year as a legislator in Tallahassee? We hope this is a public service but for many they make more money as politicians than in the private sector.





Florida

 Let’s say you are a certain transportation company seeking legislation that will help your bottom line. Campaign laws limit the amount of money you can give to a political campaign, but in Florida you can hire elected officials as “consultants” and pay them whatever you want. There are numerous examples of powerful elected officials being paid tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees or to perform marketing studies despite the fact they never performed those services before they held elected office.



The average taxpayer does not have a fighting chance when powerful special interests throw millions of dollars at elected officials. If an elected official has a choice between feeding their family or serving the taxpayer they will chose their family every time.
State Senator Mike Fasano proposed an ethics reform bill this year. The problem is Fasano accepted a job with a powerful company just weeks after approving Sun Rail that helped his new employer. Ethics reform should prevent elected officials from taking consulting fees or jobs from companies that do business with the State of Florida.

We currently have elected officials employed in “government affairs” with companies who benefit from their work. If an elected official has a job with a company that does business with the State of Florida, that representative should be barred from voting on legislation that affects their company. These public servants are not serving the public at all. They put themselves in a position of power to help their employers.
Corruption is no longer cash in a brown paper bag. The corruption now comes in the form of consulting fees and jobs that influence public policy to the benefit of special interests. Florida desperately needs a major ethics reform law that bars elected officials from putting the interests of special interests above the citizens of Florida.

http://www.floridapoliticalpress.com/2011/05/08/the-florida-way-corruption/

Florida Hired Law Firm With Ties To Gov. Rick Scott

By GARY FINEOUT

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida has spent nearly a half-million dollars - and could spend even more - with a large, well-known law firm that has connections to both the Republican Party of Florida as well as Gov. Rick Scott.
Since August the state has paid nearly $400,000 to the law firm of Alston and Bird to defend a new state law that requires public employees to contribute 3 percent of their pay to the state pension fund.
The firm was hired at the urging of the Scott administration which asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to approve paying the firm hourly rates at $495 an hour or nearly $300 more than what is normally allowed.
The Scott administration and Bondi have defended the hiring of the firm, saying it specializes in the kind of litigation that the state is now involved in.



General Pam Bondi

 But the firm's roster also includes a one-time business associate of Scott.
While not working directly on the lawsuit, a senior counsel with the firm's Washington D.C. office is Thomas Scully. Scully is also a general partner with the New York investment firm of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. That's the investment firm that this June purchased Scott's shares in Solantic, a chain of urgent care clinics the governor started back in 2001.
Scully, who once led the Federation of American Hospitals, was appointed to the board of directors of Solantic back in 2008.
Scott last year valued his shares in Solantic at $62 million. He initially transferred his ownership interest to his wife's revocable trust prior to taking office in January. But then Scott sold the shares amid questions as to whether he could benefit financially from state efforts to privatize Medicaid and require drug testing for welfare recipients. Scott maintained that Solantic would not seek state contracts and said he was just too busy as governor to spend time overseeing business interests.

Scott, the former head of the massive Columbia/HCA hospital chain, said that he has known Scully for 20 years. But he said on Tuesday that he didn't know that Scully worked for Alston and Bird.
"I knew that he was with a firm in D.C. but I didn't know the name of the firm," Scott told The Associated Press.
Alston and Bird has offices in Brussels and across the nation, including Atlanta, but none in Florida. The firm is involved in a wide-range of areas, ranging from work it did as an examiner on the bankruptcy of Enron to lobbying in Washington D.C.
The firm conducted a forensic audit last year on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida that concluded that former Gov. Charlie Crist and former party chairman Jim Greer had misspent party money. Crist, who bolted the Republican Party last spring to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, blasted the audit at the time and denied he let the party pay for vacations he took.



Gov. Charlie Crist

 Federal campaign records from last year and early this year show that the Republican Party paid nearly $200,000 to Alston and Bird for its work.
Alston and Bird was first hired by the state back in early August after the Florida Education Association, other public employee unions and several individual workers asked a court to strike down the law that requires public employees to start contributing to the Florida Retirement System
Bondi's office - which is responsible for defending the state in lawsuits - signed off on a request from the Scott administration to hire the firm and to pay it more than normal hourly rates.
"We thought they were best," said Bondi when asked about it.
But State Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, sharply criticized the hiring and questioned why the state couldn't at least hire a law firm that has offices located in the state.
"Did we have go all the way to D.C. to hire attorneys who get paid at more than twice the normal pay?" Rich said.


Follow the money



The contract between the state and the law firm caps the total compensation at $500,000. So far the state has paid out $391,000, a spokesman for the Department of Management Services said.

But Jason Dimitris, general counsel for the agency, said the state is likely to offer Alston and Bird a second contract since the first one only covered the trial at the circuit court level. Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford has not yet ruled on the pension lawsuit, but the case is expected to be appealed by the losing side.
Dimitris said that everyone involved in the litigation agreed on hiring Alston and Bird initially because of the "complex" nature of the pension lawsuit.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/15/2503865/fla-hired-law-firm-with-ties-to.html#ixzz1eHqj2wDq

Florida corruption denies Congress the ability to ever to win the people’s trust.

Meet Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown

  Meet Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL), seen here speaking on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives. For those of you who may be wondering what on earth she is wearing in the picture to the left, that is some kind of super-size Florida Gators gown.  At least it is the Florida Gators colors, that much I am sure of. Rep. Brown has been a member of  Congress since 1993. Before that she served in the Florida House from 1985 -1991.  She was also a participant in Michael Moore’s slacker college voter drive tour, which also tells us something about her political ideology.


Mr. Alcee Hastings



    Rep. Brown is no stranger to controversy either. Back in 1993 the FEC investigated Rep. Brown for neglecting to take action towards her aid whom had been found to have been committing forgery by signing  a treasurer’s signature on financial documents. This was during Brown’s first year in Congress, and this staffer not only wasn’t fired, but stayed on Brown’s staff for five years while also being promoted as Brown’s Chief of Staff. Once again we see a Florida politician involved in corruption scandals without ever seeing any jail time. See my article about another wonder-ful Florida politician, Mr. Alcee Hastings.* he is the impeached federal Judge that Floridians have reelected numerous times, and is still in our Congress.



  Rep. Brown was also under investigation again in 1996 that concerned financial misdeeds concerning charges that Brown improperly received and spent a $10,000 check from a secret account used for money laundering by National baptist Leader leader Henry Lyons.  Brown admitted receiving the check but denied she had used the money improperly.  She was accused of not reporting the check or reporting who she received the money from. Brown said that she had taken the check and converted it into another check made out to Pameron Bus Tours to pay for transportation to a rally she organized in Tallahassee. She said that she didn’t have to report the money because the rally was to protest the reorganization of her district lines, and she did not use it for herself. If the $10,000 gift had been reported, it would have exceeded the $1,000 individual donation limit.  Jail time? None. Kicked out of office? Still there, thanks to the informed voters of Florida. The insanity continued as we see next.

 On June 9, 1998, the Congressional Accountability Project filed an ethics complaint against Brown. The Project called for the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate several violations of House Rule 10.  One of the complaints was that Brown’s daughter Shantrel, a lawyer who worked for the EPA in Washington, had received a $50,000 Lexus LS 400 automobile as a gift from an agent of a Gambian millionaire named Foutanga Sissoko. Sissoko, a friend of Congresswoman Brown, had been imprisoned in Miami after pleading guilty to charges of bribing a customs officer. Brown had worked to secure his release, pressuring U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to deport Sissoko back to his homeland as an alternative to continued incarceration. The Project held this violated the House gift rule, but Brown denied she had acted improperly. The congressional subcommittee investigating Brown found insufficient evidence to issue a Statement of Alleged Violation, but said she had acted with poor judgment in connection with Sissoko.  This is what happens when we have corrupto-crats in Congress deciding on punichment for fellow corrupto-crats. No punishment, no jail time and no justice for the people once again.

       Rep Brown, seeing that she was basically bulletproof to the laws of America at this point,  continued her assault on the integrity of the U. S. Congress, and in her pattern of keeping the money in the family, and was caught up in yet another scandal. In June 2007, Citizens for Ethics released a report reporting Brown’s daughter Shantrel Brown-Fields as a congressional lobbyist; the organization maintains that Congressional relatives working as lobbyists for special interests are a conflict of interest for lawmakers. Brown-Fields is employed by Alcalde & Fayte, with clients including ITERA, Miami-Dade County Commission, and Edward Waters college. In 2006, Brown’s campaign committee paid her daughter’s husband, Tyree Fields, $5,500 for political consulting work. Rep. Brown has earmarked millions of dollars in federal funding for her daughter’s client Edward Waters College. This woman is still a United States Congresswoman? YES  she is, thanks to the self-serving politicians who have failed to address her career corruption, and the Florida voters who keep on reelecting her. How does that make any sense today?

Rep. Brown was in the news again this week.  She is being sued by a Democratic fundraising firm for $44,495 dollars in unpaid bills by Berger Hirschberg Strategies. Brown apparently just stopped paying the firm after they raised over half a million dollars for her campaign. Mysteriously, Brown claimed in reports to the Federal Election Comission (FEC) she did pay the firm $15,000 in July–even while admitting in court filings her campaign didn’t pay Berger Hirschberg that month. So now we have a blatant  lie in her reports to the FEC to top it all off here. I hope the good people of Florida are paying attention here, and will remember this information come the 2012 elections. Just in case they don’t, I shall be republishing this article frequently until then. In the meantime, this is another situation that the people need to demand answers for up in D. C. Why hasn’t this woman been kicked out of our Congress?   There are several instance of documented corruption and abuse of office that have already been proven agains Rep Brown.

 When people up in our nation’s capitol start talking about winning back the people’s trust, just take a look at the facts here. You deserve no trust, none whatsoever letting this kind of corruption run rampant in the U. S. Congress. Clear enough?



http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/03/florida-corrupt-congresswoman-being-sued-for-not-paying-bills/

Engaged Citizens Deserve The Tools To Hold Their Public Servants Accountable

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – In an effort to shift the balance of power from politicians to the people they represent, Representative Rick Kriseman (D-St. Petersburg) today filed legislation to permit the recall of state officials.

Florida currently allows for the recall of local elected officials, but there is no provision in state law to allow for the recall of state officials. House Joint Resolution 785 and House Bill 787, both sponsored by Representative Kriseman, would allow the public to recall from office Florida legislators, members of the Florida Cabinet, governor and lieutenant governor.

“Engaged citizens deserve the tools to hold their public servants accountable without having to wait for the next election,” said Representative Kriseman. “Honest and dedicated elected officials will have nothing to fear from the implementation of this important proposal, and I am confident that my colleagues will support its passage.”

HJR 785 allows for a petition to recall a statewide official, requiring signatures be collected from each of the 67 counties, and the signatures equal 15 percent of the total votes cast in the last election for the office. A petition to recall a member of the Florida Legislature would require signatures from 20 percent of the total votes cast in the last election for the office.

If HJR 785 is approved by the Legislature, voters will be asked on the November 2012 General Election ballots to amend the state constitution with the recall provision. House Bill 787 would create a statutory recall provision.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 18 states now permit the recall of state officials.

For more on the legislation:
http://myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/sponsoredbills.aspx?MemberId=4393&SessionId=66