Scott on state plane, high-dollar hires and more at first presser
by Dara Kam | January 7th, 2011
A relaxed Gov. Rick Scott fielded questions about his busy first week on the job at his first press conference with the Capitol press corps since moving into the mansion last weekend.
Here are some highlights of his roughly 20-minute presser:
State planes:
Scott put the two state planes on the auction bloc and is traveling on his own plane on his own dime.
“It’s my plane. I pay for it myself. The same way I’ve always done it. It’s my money.”
He’s not making his flight logs public: “I’ve never done it. I don’t believe in it.”
What about South Carolina’s governor who disappeared and left even his own administration wondering where he was? “I don’t think you have to worry about that too much.”
Inner circle salaries:
Scott’s paying some of his executive staff salaries higher than the governor’s while he is forgoing his annual $138,000 salary and taking just one penny.
“I’m paying what I think are competitive salaries. The goal is look around the country and around the state to find the best people and pay them a competitive compensation.”
Gambling:
Scott said he has not taken a position on whether Florida should welcome Las Vegas-style casinos.
“Right now, I do not want to have our budget tied to gaming. We already have gaming in this state. I’m fine with what they’re doing. So, I have not taken any position that I want to expand gaming or make any changes.”
Asked whether there was any significance in his choice of words (“gaming” rather than “gambling”), Scott said with a smile: “No. Probably in the talking points.”
Rulemaking:
Scott froze all rule-making by executive agencies in one of his first executive orders immediately after taking office Tuesday.
He said today that he’ll allow some rules to go through.
The analysis he’s using? “The benefit to a consumer vs. the cost to killing jobs.”
On his new hometown: “I like Tallahassee…The weather’s been perfect. It’s not as warm as Naples but it’s pretty nice.”
Tags: Rick Scott
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January 7th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
We need to forge ahead with the independant prosecutor, and state wide grand jury, to investigate the cover-up of his role in the massive medicare fraude at HCA. I’m all for selecting a prominant Democrat to head-up this most important post.
January 7th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
When things sound too good to be true, they usually are. Has this man earned my trust?
January 7th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
I sure hope the reasoning behind the “inner circle salaries” justification will also apply to State employees…no pay increases for almost five years, benefit premiums go up every year and now the new “relaxed Gov. Rick Scott” is proposing to further affect benefits negatively. His plans will certainly dictate the quality of our state hired work force; the best people will seek employeement elsewhere! Sad…
January 7th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Here’s highlights? Someone needs to proof a bit better
January 7th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
To all the TOOLS in this state who voted this clown into office, as well as TeaBagger Alan West, thanks for nothing! Not only are they crooks of the highest order, but now they want to screw over those of us who do the heavy lifting day after day. Sadly, it will take a year or so for those who voted for them to see it, by then it will be too late with 3 and 5 years left to pay for it. Pure freaking genius I tell ya! Floriduh is the proper spelling, I just hope the cost isnt too high in the end.
January 7th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Competitve salaries is 30% less of what they were before some being more. That the basic cuts many in this nation for those that didn’t lose their jobs. There is no rules in a bad economy other than less………… That is being fiscally responsible to the taxpayers… There are many out of work that are willing to do it for less. You should be hiring the unemployed anyway with no experience like you.
January 7th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Interesting enough… the TOOLS are the majority now crybaby! It’s quite comical watching all the Democrats (by Democrats I mean Morons that don’t know jack about the USA’s history) freaking out at their wits end trying to demonize the entire Republican party….
January 7th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Time to sit back and watch very closely. The comment about the pay for state workers is right on the money (no pun intended). At one time some agencies kept their salaries in the top 20 percent of the national range to attract the best people. Now with no raises for several years and increased cost to employees the best are leaving. When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
January 7th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
On another note, Mr. Scott doesn’t have to reveal his flight plans, you can track the movement of any registered aircraft on the internet with no effort.
January 7th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Whether Scott takes no salary – which he isn’t, and uses his own plane – which he is – or not, he needs to be accountable to the people who elected him for his time and where he goes. He still is an elected official and accountable to the voters.
As for top dollar for his new hires: at the same time he is freezing salaries for other public employees – many of whom whose salaries are so low they are eligible for Food Stamps!!
January 7th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
@mojo
Those very same state workers who haven’t received a raise in the last 5 years also have run Florida into the ground. There is a $3.5 billion budget whole that rests solidly on the shoulders of the government workers and their respective agencies.
We need new leaders in all aspects of state government, and fresh ideas to cut the fat out of the system.
And as for the best employees leaving for the private sector, what does that leave us with? The worst employees? great, why were the worst employees there in the first place.
January 7th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
About 25 years ago a well functioning State Department of Health was merged with HRS and after 3 years was moved from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. In the interim, the Health Department was in limbo. Not knowing what was going to happen when or whether they would have a job in Tallahassee, most of the best of the administration left because of the unknowns. A well-functioning lab also lost most of their best employees.
The role of the Health Department has changed through the years with the whim of the current administration; changing responsibilities, attempts at priviatization and more. And, of course, funding issues – never enough.
During the ensuing years, job and pay freezes took their toll with the loss of many more good employees. Yes, some of those left were not the best but, in my experience, many very good people stayed because, like me, they loved their job.
I personally know of staff who stayed because they loved their job even though their salary was low enough to entitle them to Food Stamps. That is the truth.
No one got/gets rich working for the Health Department, particularly at the local level.
As for benefits, the retirement plan – just as it is for other state employees a good one. But remember, your benefits depend on your salary during employment. With multiple pay cuts through the years, no one gets rich either while on the job or retired.
Most people have no idea what state Health Departments do – they just think of state employees as living on the public dole. (Sounds like you may work in a Health Department or know someone who does and have a negative impression as a result of your personal experience).
No other organization/hospital/private practice knows about communicable diseases like a Health Department does. With immigrants, legal or not, or visitors to this state from nearby islands or just tourists, Florida is subject to a communicable disease breakout. No other organization/hospital/private practice is prepared to deal with an outbreak or even deal with communicable disease – particularly exotic ones – on a one-to-one basis.
Plans to close A. G. Holley? Not a bad idea, the facility itself is way beyond its time. Close it without an alternative facility? That is a bad idea. Local hospitals are totally unprepared (financially and physically) to handle drug-resistant TB, especially in non-compliant patients.
No other organization is prepared to deal with many of the other functions of a Health Department either.
Take school health. In Palm Beach we are fortunate to have a Health Care District that employs school nurses. Most schools in PBC are a community in itself; certainly bigger than some small towns. They provide a much needed services. Most counties don’t have the luxury of such funding for school health nurses but still have the responsibilities.
How about Healthy Start, WIC and Teen pregnancy programs? And how well have Child Care inspections/monitoring and restaurant inspections fared since taken away from Health Department responsibilities??
I am concerned that Gov. Scott and his advisors (and legislators and most of the public) have no idea what Health Departments do or could do, if supported and funded properly. It can only get worse.
January 7th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
The health depts have over reached for many years. They have gotten into the business of primary health care in some areas. If you have read the transition plan you would see that the powers that be at DOH did not endear themselves to their new boss. They read the mission statement, treated them poorly, proposed cutting their millions of excess by nixing some 9 of 22000+ positions. Healthy Start, don’t even get me started, because they funnel the money to local coalitions, from DOH, and the coalitions give the money back to many DOH’s who then provide services. Then along comes DOH to audit the program and lo and behold, the audit comes out fantastic! The DOH needs to be scaled back to what it was in the past, just as the transition team has proposed! Read their document and then you will see that they thought about it and are right on target! There is waste at DOH and while I agree there are good employees there is greed, waster and mismanagment that has been allowed to pervade the DOH for many years and now we finally have a Governor who came from Health Care and is intelligent enough to see it!
January 7th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
@ Pete
My point was that when the best employees depart, the low quality applicants will be the ones filling the vacancies across the board! Loving what I do as a state employee does not pay the bills, a competetive salary and benefits is what dictates the quality of your state work force. You get what you pay for…
January 7th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
RE: LDS
Primary care was not an over-reach by Health Departments; it was initially federally mandated (Health Departments were designatedto provide primary care services, i.e. Medicaid, Family Planning, in the 70′s, by default, as a failure of the private sector to provide needed care). So were the Healthy Start coalitions mandated – by the FL legislature in 1991. These were not established by the choice of Health Departments. Know your history before you rant.
January 8th, 2011 at 8:34 am
The Post continues it’s one sided re-writing of articles.
They are only happy with democrats.
Wish there was an alternative to getting local news from another source.
Slant, slant; biased, biased.
Rick Scott has refused his salary for governor. He will use his own plane, instead of the state plane.
Scott is trying to sell-off state planes that once flew judges and reps. He told them to fly commercial, drive.
The public is cost-cutting; it’s good to know this is happening at the top levels.
Now, let’s see if he can encourage businesses to come here and employ, the unemployed.
Pretty hard when the state economy is based on construction (slew of homes in foreclosure), tourism (people just don’t have the money).
January 12th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Creating jobs in Florida is a noble effort, let’s just hope it is the CURRENT Floridians that get them and not ‘imports’ from other states and countries.