The Florida House and Senate began making their first moves toward the exit Friday, debating a $74.5 billion state budget set to be approved on the 60-day session’s final scheduled day.

The budget for the year beginning July 1 is poised to be the largest in state history. In House closing speeches, there was plenty of praise for $1 billion increase in school spending, pay raises for state employees for the first time in seven years, and dozens of hometown projects scattered throughout the budget.

There was also a measure of relief. Legislators were helped by the first budget surplus since before the recession.

“Because of fiscally sound management and making hard decision, today we can celebrate a great time of restoration,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

Most of the outnumbered Democratic caucus, which fought unsuccessfully to expand health care to uninsured Floridians, sided with ruling Republicans on the spending plan.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not another train,” said Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach.

But several Democrats called for Gov. Rick Scott to veto the budget and call lawmakers back into a later special session. Scott had allied with Democrats and the Republican-led Senate in looking to position Florida to draw $51 billion in federal Medicaid money to cover more than 1 million uninsured Floridians.

Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, was among those who indicated they will vote against the measure.

“The budget is not plugged into the reality that exists outside this chamber,” Pafford said.

Florida’s 2011 unemployment compensation law, which makes those seeking benefits file online and complete a skills test, is run so poorly it effectively discriminates against minorities and the disabled, the U.S. Department of Labor has found.

The National Employment Law Project, Florida Legal Services and Miami Workers Center challenged Florida’s law in 2011, charging that sweeping changes to how Florida workers must file claims have denied unemployment checks to thousands of eligible Floridians.

Critics also said that frustration with the system may be aiding Scott’s goal of reducing unemployment. Some workers may abandon their job search or just leave the state, falling out of Florida’s labor market.

Florida’s unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent last month, its lowest point in three years.

“The decision by the USDOL Civil Rights Center is a victory for Florida’s unemployed workers with disabilities or limited English proficiency, who have been shut out of the system by the onerous online requirements,” the workers’ organizations said Thursday in a statement.

They said the state has entered into negotiations with the federal government to reach voluntary compliance with the ruling, and put in place remedies to make unemployment insurance available to job-seekers unable to complete online claim requirements.

Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity, which oversees the unemployment compensation program, said this:

“DOL was aware of the legislative changes to the reemployment system before its passage in 2011 and provided no objection. Now a different division within DOL, in response to questionable allegations by a special interest group, is challenging those very same laws.

“ Nevertheless we are committed to working with our federal partner to ensure that Florida’s economy continues to grow.”

After earlier taunting Texas and attempting to tempt New York businesses to move to Florida, Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday shifted his focus toward Illinois — urging businesses to buy a one-way ticket to the Sunshine State.

“My number one priority is to continue to make Florida the number one destination for business so we can continue to create jobs and opportunities for Florida families,” Scott said after sending an open letter to Illinois business. “My ‘One Way’ campaign is a great way to let businesses in Illinois, and around the world, know that they are welcome in Florida.”

In his “Dear Illinois Business Owner” letter,  Scott touted Florida’s “incredible economic turnaround.” He also said Illinois companies should look to leave home to flee high taxes and unemployment.

Here’s what Scott wrote:  Illinois letter

House Speaker Will Weatherford released budget allocations Monday to House committees that will begin putting together next year’s state spending plan — calling for at least $1 billion more for public schools and enough cash to increase state worker pay for the first time in six years.

The Senate followed suit by also handing its budget committees their shares. While Weatherford provided a roadmap to priority items, Senate Budget Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, kept quiet about items where his chamber is looking to spend cash.

Negron, however, did criticize a “lack of leadership in Washington,” for making state budgeting more uncertain.

The Legislature’s closing weeks will be consumed with budget work. But the leaders’ allocations are essentially the public kick-off of the process.

“For the first time in seven years, we are no longer facing a significant budget shortfall,” Weatherford said Monday, in a memo to House members. ” This is not only attributable to improved economic conditions but also to your hard work by making responsible choices in tough times to balance our budget and provide a fiscally sustainable future.”

State economists Friday night enhanced their tax collection forecast, concluding that lawmakers will have more than $1 billion extra to spend this spring – even after matching the same spending and reserve accounts of the curent $70 billion budget.

Like Negron, economists concluded that Washington’s handling of automatic spending cuts that took effect March 1 has made it tougher to predict the state’s budget future.

While both sides welcome the bounty of extra cash, the House acknowledged it still skims another $300 million from state trust funds to supplement spending.

While the Senate didn’t specificially address how it handles trust funds, such raids have been common in recent belt-tightening years, usually drawing push-back from road-builders, environmentalists and other advocates angered by having earmarked funds diminished.

Weatherford, however, said pointedly that the House won’t reduce transportation funds, which Gov. Rick Scott and others see as key to fostering more business development in Florida.

In other provisions, the speaker said that the House will restore to Florida’s 12 public universities the $300 million they lost last year in a budget cut.  Weatherford, who is pushing to revamp the Florida Retirement System, also pledged to steer more than $500 million into the $126 billion account to reduce its unfunded liability.

Rick Scott  opened the 2013 Legislature with a State of the State speech Tuesday in which he took credit for bringing the state back from the economic brink but also laid out plans for his toughest test yet – a two-month battle with fellow Republicans over Medicaid expansion.

Scott urged lawmakers to embrace his push for more money for teachers and schools, a tax break for manufacturers, and the challenging goal of expanding Medicaid eligibility to provide health coverage to another 1 million lower-income Floridians.

With his re-election bid only a year away, Scott reflected on his two years leading the state – and declared it a success. He repeatedly used the refrain, “it’s working.”

“Two years ago, we began the hard work to get our state’s economy back on track,” Scotttold lawmakers gathered for a joint-session in a flower bedecked House chamber. “Today, we know it’s working.”

Scott credited his administration and the Republican-controlled Legislature for reducing sky-high unemployment through restrained spending, cutting regulations and reducing state debt.

Scott, who could face a re-election challenge from former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, now a Democrat, blamed previous administrations for “shortsighted policies of borrowing,” that he said helped fuel Florida’s collapse.

“Now, there is a debate about how to count all the jobs being created, and who should get credit for it,” Scott told lawmakers.

“Maybe it is because I am not a politician, but I think this is a great debate to have,” he added. “It celebrates the fact that our economy is once again creating jobs…And, as Ronald Reagan said, there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care
about who gets the credit.”

Scott’s third State of the State address comes at a challenging time, however, for the Republican governor. His $74.2 billion budget proposal – the largest in state history – has been blistered by tea party groups which supported him in his
2010 election.

But Scott antagonized a larger swath of Republicans last month by calling on lawmakers to expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act.  For Scott, it was a dramatic policy reversal that is going to prove a tough sell with lawmakers.

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Gov. Rick Scott lashed out Wednesday at President Obama, saying it is up to the White House to resolve the congressional deadlock over looming budget cuts that could slash millions of dollars from Florida’s economy.

A week ago, Scott antagonized many supporters within his own Republican Party for embracing Medicaid expansion, which Obama envisioned as a key component of the Affordable Care Act. But Scott this week has been apparently trying to bolster his conservative bonafides – with the budget cuts called sequestration emerging as his latest platform.

“If your administration fails to do its job to responsibly managed the budget, thousands of Floridians will lose their jobs under sequestration,” Scott said Wednesday in a letter to the president. The italics are Scott’s own.

“There is no doubt that budget cuts must be made at the national level, just as we do here at the state level,” Scott added. “But it is the responsibility of the administration to administer spending reductions responsibly. Instead of cutting with a scalpel, your sequestration process is a meat cleaver.”

In 2011, as part of a last-minute agreement to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt for the first time, Congress and the White House formed a bipartisan committee to develop a comprehensive plan to cut how much money the nation owes.

The deal included a clause that essentially said that if that committee could not reach a deal, the government would face $85 billion in arbitrary and painful cuts to both domestic and defense programs this year.

The White House has said that if another budget deal is not reached by Friday, about 750 teachers and aides could be laid off in Florida; 31,000 Department of Defense workers would be furloughed; 1,600 children would lose their place in day care; and thousands fewer will receive vaccinations.

Airport delays linked to a reduction in federal personnel also is forecast as hitting the Sunshine State hard.

White House officials said Wednesday that Obama has invited congressional leadership to a meeting Friday, after the cuts have gone into effect. The tactic suggests the administration does not expect much action from a deadlocked Congress before then.

Scott has been under fire within conservative ranks after dropping his long opposition to Medicaid expansion. But Wednesday’s letter prodding Obama comes only a day after Scott lashed out when a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ban on a 2011 law requiring drug-testing of state welfare recipients.

Losing for a second time in court only seemed to raise Scott’s conservative hackles. After the ruling, Scott said Tuesday he he intends to take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is Scott’s letter to: President Obama

Supporters pushing Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature to approve Medicaid expansion under the federal health care overhaul said the move would provide a needed jolt to Florida’s still-fragile economy.

Families USA released a report that said making more lower-income Floridians eligible for health coverage under Medicaid will yield 71,300 new jobs and pump $8.9 billion more in economic activity into the state.

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said given the broad social and economic reach of a Medicaid expansion, “A refusal would be an act of fiscal malpractice.”

House and Senate committtees examining the Affordable Care Act and its effect on Florida are looking likely to recommend a direction on Medicaid expansion by early March.  Among the considerations, is whether the federal government will approve the state’s 2011 request to move most of the state’s current 3.2 million Medicaid enrollees into managed care.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the Senate panel reviewing the law, told the Palm Beach Post there is “clearly a nexus between the two.”

“Without the waiver, we are not likely to move ahead with expansion,” Negron said.

Federal officials have been negotiating with the state for two years on the managed care shift, but the two sides are expected to be close to reaching agreement.

Families USA, a health care advocacy organization, said that many of the new jobs it forecasts will be created in the health care industry, already a huge employer in Florida. But the amount of revenue pumped into the state with the expansion — which could amount to $26 billion over the next decade — will also course through many areas of the workforce, the report concludes.

Florida analysts said Friday the state’s economy continues to show signs of life, with tax collections expected to rise another 4 percent next year.

A state revenue estimating conference is meeting to make adjustments to the forecast they last made in August, when they predicted lawmakers would have a robust $2.6 billion more revenue for 2013-14.

Rising costs and reserves will absorb most of that cash. But the Senate Budget Committee was told last week that the Legislature could have a surplus of almost $500 million when it convenes next spring, money that could make it easier to finance schools, social service programs, economic development efforts and other state priorities.

On Friday, economists representing the Legislature offered a darker revenue forecast than those made by Gov. Rick Scott’s office and the state’s Revenue Department.  But the conference is expected to talk over the state’s economy for much of the day before settling on final revenue figures.

Still, this year’s general revenue total of about $25 billion remains well below the state’s high-water mark reached during the real estate bubble. In 2006-07, lawmakers expected $31.7 billion to flow into the fund before the bottom fell out of the nation’s economy.

Gov. Rick Scott praised new U.S. Census findings that listed Florida as the nation’s top spot for state-to-state migration — powered by a surge of New Yorkers flocking to the Sunshine State.

Many Palm Beach County residents may see the trend as only meaning more traffic on Federal Highway and longer lines at The Gardens Mall. But Scott sees the net total of 59,288 more New Yorkers coming to Florida as validation of the economic turnaround he touts the state as experiencing during his administration.

“We encourage families from other states to take a look at Florida because we are making sure that our residents can live their version of the American Dream,” Scott said.

The latest U.S. Census survey showed the nation’s top 10 destination moves — with the New York to Florida link and Georgia to Florida transition (a net 38,658-person gain) making the list. Florida also had more people move here from Puerto Rico than any other state (almost 15,000 more).

Employment relocation and people seeking cheaper housing was among the reasons for the moves, the survey found.

Pete Antonacci, who served as Palm Beach County state attorney since March, is returning to the Florida Capitol after being named Thursday as Gov. Rick Scott’s general counsel.

Antonacci, appointed by Scott to succeed Michael McAuliffe, who left for a private-sector job, is scheduled to leave office in January following the election last month of Dave Aronberg as Palm Beach County state attorney. Antonacci, who had been a statewide prosecutor and formerly a top deputy under Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, has practiced law and lobbied in Tallahassee for the past 15 years.

Antonacci will take over the general counsel’s post Jan. 8, Scott said.

The opening in Scott’s office emerged when current general counsel Jesse Panuccio was named executive director of the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity.

Panuccio takes over for Hunting Deutsch, who announced his resignation this week after questions were raised about him having received unemployment benefits for 20 months ending last year. Panuccio becomes Scott’s third jobs czar in 14 months.

During part of the period Deutsch was out of work as a banking executive, he traveled in Europe and was apparently unavailable to accept a job even if offered, a requirement of Florida’s unemployment compensation system. Scott, who apparently did not pressure Deutsch to leave, later said he had made the correct decision in stepping down.

Antonacci wasn’t a quiet caretaker in serving out the remaining months of McAuliffe’s term. He fired a couple of top prosecutors after criticizing the county’s criminal conviction rate, and took the unprecedented step of filing a legal motion to have a county judge, Barry Cohen, barred from presiding over criminal cases.

Gov. Rick Scott and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said Tuesday that state offficials have agreed to an almost $500,000 settlement with a Tallahassee art gallery and a construction firm ensnared in a controversy stemming from the new First District Court of Appeal building.

The settlement still must be approved by the Legislative Budget Commission. And even though the state is paying not only the full amount owed Signature Art Gallery and Peter Brown Construction — plus the private companies’ legal fees — Republican leaders cast the settlement as a victory for taxpayers.

The companies will be paid the $392,658.56 owed them, along with $122,224.14 for litigation and other costs, according to the settlement.

“Our most important goal is to protect taxpayer dollars to best meet the needs of Florida families,” Scott said. “It was right to ask for a rigorous and thorough review of the tax dollars
committed to this project.”

Atwater, a former North Palm Beach legislator, said, “With this settlement, the parties now agree that it is appropriate for the Legislature to determine the legitimacy of the payment request.”

The stand-off with the contractors began in 2010, when Atwater’s predecessor, Democrat Alex Sink, completed an audit of the First DCA project a month before her defeat by Scott in the governor’s race. She  said a “perfect storm” of wrongdoing helped run cost of the project – which she dubbed the Taj Mahal – to $48.8 million, about $17 million more than initial estimates.

The courthouse, she said includes 20 miles worth of imported African mahogany, granite countertops and other luxury fixtures.

It had become a “travesty,”  Sink said, because of a lack of oversight by the state Department of Management Services and bullying by appeals court judges – particularly Chief Judge Paul Hawkes. Hawkes has since stepped down from the court.

Sink froze payments to Signature Gallery for 369 framed, historic photos for for the courthouse. The hardline stance was continued by Atwater after he was elected that fall. The construction company included in the settlement had contracted with Signature Gallery to provide the art work.

According to the settlement announced Tuesday, the photos don’t sound destined for the First DCA building. Instead, the artwork involved in the settlement will go to the Department of State’s Division of Cultural Affairs.

The role of Gov. Rick Scott’s jobs czar is fast becoming one of Florida’s high-turnover careers — with Hunting Deutsch’s resignation Tuesday coming less than a year since his predecessor, Doug Darling also stepped down.

Deutsch quit the Department of Economic Opportunity following reports by the Florida Current, an online news service, that he had received $275-a-week in unemployment benefits for 20 months after losing his banking job when the institution failed.

During the time Deutsch collected between September 2009 and May 2011 he traveled in Europe even though state law requires that those receiving benefits be available for work.

In resigning, effective Dec. 14, Deutsch told Scott the “current media focus on my personal matters (was) a distraction to the agency and your administration and believe it best for me to leave.” Deutsch earned $140,000-a-year in the job.

Scott has made job creation his signature issue.

But he has struggled to keep someone in the executive director’s post at DEO, which now has a turnover rate rivaling that of the hospitality industry, one of the state’s most frequent job-changing careers.  Darling left in January after feuding with then-Scott chief-of-staff Steve MacNamara.

Scott said, “Hunt did the right thing by resigning from DEO. It is important that nothing interfere with our mission to create more jobs and opportunities for Florida families.”

Gov. Rick Scott is set to lead a 200-person trade mission this weekend to Colombia, Florida’s second-largest trading partner.

The mission, organized by Enterprise Florida with participants from 116 companies, is Scott’s seventh as governor. The entourage is scheduled to leave Sunday and be in Colombia into Wednesday.

These missions help us attract new industries and businesses to Florida and further cement our standing as one of the nation’s top trading states,” Scott said. “I look forward to visiting Colombia and with the recent ratification of the Free Trade Agreements.”

Including $9 billion in trade between Florida and Colombia, 37 percent of U.S. exports to the country flow through the state, officials said. Scott’s earlier missions went to Panama, Canada, Brazil, Israel, Great Britain and Spain.

Gov. Rick Scott, who has been trying to rein-in the cost of higher education in Florida, fired off a challenge Monday to state college leaders — urging they create bachelor’s degree programs costing no more than $10,000.

Such degrees at Florida state colleges — formerly known as community colleges — currently average $13,264, said Randy Hanna, chancellor of the Florida College System.

“Today, what I’m doing is saying to our state colleges, ‘Can you come up with $10,000-degrees, where people can get great jobs…so you could live your version of the American dream,’” Scott told a Tampa television station, before announcing his proposal in an appearance at St. Petersburg College.

Most of Scott’s earlier questioning of higher education costs have been directed at the State University System, where the latest round of tuition increases of from 9 percent to 15 percent, have boosted the average annual rate to $6,232 this fall — 41st highest in the nation.

But the State College System now serves almost 900,000 students, with enrollment rising with the slow economy.

Hanna said the “logistics still have to be worked out,” on the governor’s challenge. But Hanna said he expected individual colleges to embrace the idea of offering at least one popular degree program at the lower rate that is aimed at getting students out into the local work force.

Municipal pension plans are stretching thinner in Florida as a smaller workforce supports a growing number of retirees — with prospects bleak that funds will recover, a report released Wednesday concludes.

The Leroy Collins Institute’s latest review of the plans found that while the sluggish economy has contributed to the funds’ problems, deeper woes plague them.

“These municipal pension issues were not created overnight and can’t be changed overnight,” said David Matkin, a public administration professor at Florida State University, who studied Florida’s 492 municipal pension plans for the Tallahassee-based institute.

The problems track those facing the Social Security system or Medicare:  Too few workers supporting a growing number of retirees. If anything, municipal budget cuts and layoffs in recent years have contributed to the imbalance, analysts said.

The result: city commissioners must earmark a larger share of municipal budgets for pension benefits. That means citizen services decline, Matkin said.

“They take up a space that is demanded by other services,” Matkin said. “You have to have some budgeting tradeoffs.”

A report released last November by the Leroy Collins Institute gave mixed reviews on the health of pension plans in 100 Florida cities, with one-third drawing ‘D’ or “F” grades for being underfunded. In Palm Beach County, plans in six cities earned failing, or near-failing grades.

Boynton Beach’s police plan and Palm Beach Gardens’ police and fire pensions were among the 15 percent of municipal plans drawing F’s. Various Plans in Riviera Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, Boynton Beach and Lake Worth earned D’s in the Collins Institute analysis of financial strength.

But general employee pensions in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and the West Palm Beach police pension also were named as some of the best-funded plans in the state.

Matkin found Florida’s pension slide began in the early 2000s, well before the recession. The timing is close to when Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-led Legislature approved changes that improved city police and fire pensions.

 The provision requires that growth in dollars flowing to cities from state taxes on property insurance premiums go to additional benefits for police officers and firefighters.

Cities next responded with such pension sweeteners as cost-of-living adjustments, lower retirement age, or an increased “multiplier” used in determining pensions based on years-of-service, all of which municipal officials say have forced cities to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on pension costs since 1999.

 The pro-union law was the first measure enacted by Bush and Republican legislators in Florida that year, then the first GOP-controlled government of any state that had been part of the Confederacy. Bush had been endorsed in the 1998 governor’s race by police and fire unions over Democrat Buddy MacKay, largely on the strength of the promised payback.

Bush eagerly signed the measure ­- relishing the symbolism of making good in a hurry on a campaign promise.

Bush and Republican leaders, however, are rarely thought of as being allied with unions. Indeed, Bush last year co-authored an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, decrying the financial woes of states, putting much of the blame on union contracts.

Bush’s co-writer was Newt Gingrich, then a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is spending Friday in Texas with fellow Republican Govs. Rick Perry of  Texas and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, pitching their respective states to a host of Chinese investors.

The U.S.-China Cross Border Private Investment Summit at Cowboys Stadium is the first stop for a six-city U.S.-China Investment Week conference, which includes an event next week in Orlando. About 50 major Chinese investors are taking part in the tour, looking for investment opportunities in the U.S.

Scott is spending the day in the Dallas-area, capped by a dinner Friday night where former President George W. Bush is slated to address the gathering.

Scott’s trip coincides with new employment numbers being released by the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity. Florida’s unemployment rate stayed at 8.8 percent for the month of August, but with 28,000 new private sector jobs created, it marked the state’s best performance in 16-months.

“This increase in new jobs is proving that the decisions we’re making here in Florida are pointing our state in the right direction,” Scott said. “Employers are aware of the talented and skilled workforce we have here, and the August numbers prove that the economic climate in Florida is one that encourages job creation and economic development.”

With Florida’s tax collections on the rise and several rounds of spending cuts having sharply shrunk services, state lawmakers should see something they haven’t eyed in more than five years:

Black ink.

Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legisature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, told a legislative panel Wednesday that revenue should outstrip spending next year by just over $71.3 million — even when lawmakers tuck away $1 billion in reserves.

“We are on track and things are moving as we expect them to move at this point,” Baker told the Legislative Budget Commission.

A year ago, Baker gave the panel a similar optimistic forecast – but included some cautions that ultimately came true. At the time, consumer confidence was darkening — unlike the current mood — and Florida’s revenues eventually crumbled in subsequent months.

Lawmakers entered last session with more than a $1 billion budget gap — and more cuts ensued.

Plenty of uncertainties remain, Baker said. But so far numbers show the state, “consistently in good shape.”

After cutting millions from the state budget when the recession hardened in 2007, lawmakers have dealt with shortfalls each of the past five years through program cuts and layoffs of thousands of workers across state and local governments.

The Legislature, however, has also sought to squirrel away dollars when they could – and completed the current year $69.9 billion budget with an additional $1 billion in reserves, a level that lawmakers have said they want to maintain.

Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, who has guided much of the budget-cutting of recent years and will leave office in November, said Baker’s report was good to hear. But he added that sizing up the state of Florida’s economy, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

Florida lawmakers steered $29.5 million back to state court clerks Thursday, erasing most of a budget cut that had led to shorter hours, longer lines and even a few layoffs.

The Legislative Budget Commission approved giving clerks authority to drawn the extra cash, which stems from increased fee and fine collections.

Palm Beach County Clerk Sharon Bock, whose office absorbed a $2.5 million reduction when the budget year began July 1, had already cut two hours from the office’s daily public operating times and closed a branch office in Royal Palm Beach to save money.

A clerk’s office spokeswoman said it wasn’t immediately clear whether these reductions would be dropped with the promise of a state windfall.

Bock had avoided layoffs, after the office cut 111 positions since 2009.  But state budget analysts had warned the Legislature’s $31 million reduction could have led to as many as 930 layoffs statewide.

“We all recognize that tough budget challenges still remain ahead for all of us, but today’s action by the LBC will help Florida’s Clerks and Comptrollers fulfill our duties for the coming year,” said Gulf County Clerk Becky Norris, president of the Florida Court Clerks and Comptrollers.”

 Florida courts have been buffeted the past two years by financial instability. At the height of the state’s foreclosure crisis, court fees generated a bounty that left clerks with a $100 million reserve at the end of 2009.

But the slowing pace of foreclosures led to budget shortfalls each of the past two years, with the Legislature forced to step in to avert widespread court delays and layoffs. Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said Thursday he remains suspect that part of the problem facing some clerks is rooted in their own management.

Alexander said some clerk’s offices are thriftier than others.

“I’ve heard so many of those sort of things,” Alexander said. “But when you look at the cost per case adjudicated and all the metrics we use, there are still some real significant differences between high-cost clerks and low-cost clerks.”

Under a budget change for the 2012- 13 year, foreclosure filing fees will now go to general revenue. Seventy-five percent of the courts’ budgets will come out of the general revenue fund, with the remainder coming from court fees.

A day after he was tapped for a speaking role at the Republican National Convention, Florida Gov. Rick Scott continued Tuesday to march to his own drummer on the state’s economy — a beat that puts him out of step with presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

“We are doing the right things here,” Scott told reporters, following a Cabinet meeting. “Look, we’re reducing taxes. We’re reducing regulation. Our agencies are trying to work with businesses to get more jobs here. Now, we need the federal government to do its part.”

Romney began airing a television spot last week that ridiculed the state’s 8.6 percent unemployment level  — which the campaign pinned to President Obama. Scott, by contrast, usually hails that mark as a notable, 2.1 percent reduction from where it was a year ago.

The Romney ad, complete with ominous music and dark, post-Apocalyptic imagery, goes on to deride Florida over the past four years as home to a record number of home and business foreclosures, while an additional 600,000 Floridians fell into poverty.

The TV spot concludes that the Democratic president “focused on ObamaCare instead of jobs.”

For his part, Scott seems to draw a distinction there.

“What I’m focused on is what I’m doing every day,” Scott said. “If they’ve asked me to speak…I’m pretty consistent in what I talk about. You know, people want jobs. We’ve had a lot of success so far. But we still have 793,000 people out of work. We’re not done yet.”

The latest state assessment of Florida’s economy continues to cloud Gov. Rick Scott’s claims that his policies are leading to an eye-catching drop in unemployment.

The Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research said Tuesday that the 1.3 percent decline in the state’s jobless level between the end of 2011 and May is largely attributed to Floridians leaving the workforce.

The unemployment rate in December was 9.9 percent and in May was clocked in at 8.6 percent. But EDR found that had the same number of Floridians been seeking jobs in May, that actual unemployment level would have been 9.5 percent, a more modest reduction.

“Sixty-nine percent of the drop in the unemployment rate is due to people dropping out of the labor force,” the analysis concluded. EDR raised similar concerns last month about April’s rate, which marked a three-year low in jobless levels.

The workforce decline is occuring in most states.  But as the nation’s biggest battleground state in the presidential contest, Florida’s improving employment picture is being grabbed by both parties.

Scott says the state’s gains would be even better if the national scene improved.  President Obama, who is scheduled to campaign Thursday and Friday in Florida,  including a stop at West Palm Beach’s Century Village, also has taken credit for brightening the Sunshine State’s out-of-work numbers.

For its part, EDR’s analysis steers clear of praise. The findings show that Florida will need to gain 1 million jobs to match the state’s pre-recession employment levels. Meanwhile, only four counties have gained employment over the past four years — rural Glades, Sumter, Suwannee and Calhoun.

Scott, though, says that since he was inaugurated, the state has created 99,600 jobs through May. His campaign goal: 700,000 jobs in seven years.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department is still reviewing a complaint by Florida Legal Services and the National Employment Law Project that wholesale changes to how Florida workers file claims have denied unemployment checks to thousands of eligible Floridians.

The latest change occured July 1, when state officials rebranded Florida’s unemployment compensation system. It’s now called reemployment assistance — but critics say it’s still hard to get. 

Critics say frustration with the system  may be fueling the perception of a sharp unemployment drop.

Thousands of job-seekers are more likely abandoning their search or just leaving the state and falling out of Florida’s labor market, they said.