Gov. Rick Scott named Sally Bradshaw, a former chief-of-staff and campaign manager ex-Gov. Jeb Bush, to the state’s Board of Education on Tuesday.

Kathleen Shanahan, currently chair of the seven-member board which oversees public schools and colleges, also is a former chief-of-staff for Bush.

Bradshaw, 46. who lives outside Tallahassee in smalltown Havana, is a political consultant, who earlier this year signed on with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s shortlived presidential campaign. Four years ago, she advised Mitt Romney’s presidential run, which then ended following his defeat in the Florida primary.

It’s Bradshaw’s second go-around on the state education board, having previously served from 2003 to 2004.  She previously chaired the school board of trustees at Tallahassee’s Holy Comforter Episcopal School and was a board member of the city’s Faith Presbyterian preschool.

Bradshaw also served on Scott’s transition team, before the new governor took office in January.

When Florida State University agreed to bring its much-honored film school to West Palm Beach, it was a Hollywood-style story, glittering with images of students getting hands-on experience in big-budget movies.

But a year before classes even begin in temporary quarters at CityPlace, FSU and its partner, Port St. Lucie-based Digital Domain Media Group, already have produced their first blockbuster.

Call it “The Civil War.”

FSU’s arrival in the backyard of Boca Raton-based Florida Atlantic University has sparked a fierce turf battle among the state’s 11 public universities, stirring age-old rivalries among schools that compete not only on the football field, but also for lucrative business partnerships, well-heeled donors and faculty-friendly locations.

FAU has cried foul over FSU’s arrival.

Spurred by the bad feelings, a panel of the State University System’s Board of Governors is scheduled to consider a new regulation today that would assign schools to specific regions and require them to get approval from the schools in another region before offering programs in that region.

“It’s a tough issue,” said Ava Parker, a Jacksonville lawyer and Board of Governors chairwoman. “The world has become more mobile and global. But a lot of this is about bricks and mortar, and where they are placed.”

Immigration is at the top of Gov. Rick Scott’s legislative priorities when lawmakers reconvene in January, the first-term governor told Northwest Florida conservative radio talk show host Burnie Thompson today.

Lawmakers failed to reach agreement on any immigration proposals during the session that ended in May.

“We should have done an immigration bill. The federal government should be securing our borders. They should have a logical, national immigration policy, a good work visa program policy. But if people are in our state illegally we should be able to ask them if they’re legal or not if they’re doing something wrong and violating our laws. That’s one thing we ought to be doing,” Scott told Thompson, a talk show host on Panama City Beach’s WYOO 101.1 FM.

Other Scott priorities include property and auto insurance reform and restricting how school districts spend money, he said.

Scott, who spends part of his days reaching out to corporate leaders and encouraging them to set up shop in the Sunshine State, challenged all Floridians to follow his lead. Scott has pledged to create 700,000 in seven years.

“I want everybody in this state to call somebody and say, ‘Look why don’t you move your company here?’ Any feelers they get give my office a call because I’ll make the phone call with them to make it happen. We have 19 million people in our state. If all of us get active on economic development, everybody in this state will have an opportunity for a job,” he said.

Read what Scott said about insurance and education after the jump.
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The state’s largest teachers’ union, which has already sued Gov. Rick Scott over the new law requiring payroll contributions to the Florida Retirement System, went a little more public Tuesday with its criticism of the Republican governor.

About 250 Florida Education Association members wore ‘Pink Slip Rick’ t-shirts on the convention floor at the National Education Association’s annual meeting  in Chicago.

“Rick Scott wants to protect Wall Street over Main Street with his plan to dole out tax breaks to CEOs while handing pink slips to middle class Floridians,” said FEA President Andy Ford.

The FEA last week absorbed a setback in the lawsuit it is leading on behalf of public employee unions, when a Leon County circuit judge refused to order the state to set aside potentially millions of dollars pending the outcome of the legal challenge. FEA had sought the temporary injunction while the lawsuit over the constitutionality of the pension law proceeds.

Chanting “Pink Slip Rick,” dozens of left-leaning activists staged a protest as Gov. Rick Scott addressed a gathering of the media in St. Petersburg.

Florida Watch Action, Progress Florida and Awake the State organized the protest to coincide with Scott’s speech and more than a hundred new laws went into effect today.

As of today, teachers, firemen, police officers and other state workers will have to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions. And more than 4,500 state workers will lose their jobs under the new $69.1 billion budget that also goes into effect today. Lawmakers also slashed education spending, all part of an effort to fill a $3.62 billion budget gap.

Wearing a “Governor Scott Enemy of the State” T-shirt, Madeira Beach teacher Mary Niemeyer held a sign decrying the state’s education cuts. “Our future is at stake,” she said.

Middle school teacher Steve Adams and his wife Mary drove from Lakeland to participate in the protest across the street from the waterfront Renaissance Vinoy Hotel where the Florida Press Association and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors held their annual meeting.

“I object to the way teachers and public employees have been the ones forced to pay for Florida’s deficit,” Adams, 67, said.

While the protest may have little – if any – impact on Scott, Adams, who said he did not vote for the first-term governor, said it and similar events have worked.

“The tea party made a difference and this is how they started. So we should take a lesson,” Adams said.

Working into the night on the legislative session’s 60th and final day,  the House and Senate debated the $69.7 billion budget — the lone bill by law the Legislature must pass each year.

The rhetoric flew in both chambers, with the partisan lines clearly marked. A final vote isn’t expected until after 10 p.m.

Ruling Republicans praised the spending plan for closing a $3.8 billion shortfall, including no-new-taxes, and managing to avoid deep cuts to programs serving critically ill, elderly and disabled Floridians.

“Contained within this budget is the seed for a money tree,” said Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, touting the blueprint’s economic development potential.

Democrats, though,  ridiculed the plan for cutting $1.3 billion from schools, reducing dollars for environmental programs, and imposing 3 percent pay cuts on 655,000 government employees who will have to contribute to the Florida Retirement System for the first time since 1974.

Rep.  Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, has stung House Republican leaders several times this session by accusing them of “sticking it” to various segments of Floridians.

He used the phrase to criticize Republicans for enacting new pay standards for teachers, and changes Clemens and other critics said were aimed at reducing womens’ access to abortion.

“It’s a great day in the state of Florida,” Clemens told the House on Friday afternoon, “because this is the last day I can ask ‘who are we sticking it to today?’ Unfortunately, the answer is Floridians.”

When the House and Senate approved separate budget proposals earlier this month which slashed public school spending by at least $1 billion, lawmakers said they were intent on boosting those dollars before session’s ends.

But wishes met reality Thursday night when school budget negotiators met for the first time and the bottom-line cut mushroomed to $1.3 billion. Per-student funding would drop an average $540 — to $6,269, a deeper reduction than earlier proposed.

Senate schools budget chief David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, said the overall cut includes an $859 million reduction stemming from the demand by lawmakers that 655,000 government workers in the Florida Retirement System, most of whom are teachers, contribute 3 percent of their pay to their pensions.

The $859 million represents a savings for school districts, which formerly paid the entire FRS share. Schools also retain $554.8 million in federal stimulus reserves distributed last fall, said Simmons, who refuted lingering pushback from educators who say it’s unfair to count that cash toward state funding.

“It’s all green money,” Simmons insisted. 

 By his calculus, schools are losing less than 1 percent of funding overall, Simmons said.

Negotiations are slated to renew tomorrow morning.

The House budget committee OK’d a stark, $66.5 billion spending plan Wednesday which reduces the state’s workforce by 5,245 jobs and imposes wide-ranging cuts to most state programs.

The Republican-led panel approved the measure on a party-line 15-8 vote.

“It’s about the best budget we could do, given the circumstances,” said Appropriations Chair Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid.

But Democrats said the ruling GOP was threatening critical programs, while endangering Floridians with such efforts as privatizing prisons and probation officers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

“When the budget puts life at risk, I have an issue,” said Rep. Franklin Sands, D-Weston.

Gov. Rick Scott reenacted Friday his signing into law legislation restricting teacher tenure and introducing merit pay — steps fiercely fought by the state’s teachers’ union.

“The big winner here is all our kids,” Scott assured in a brief ceremony at the Capitol, flanked by House and Senate sponsors of the measure, approved last week by the Republican-ruled Legislature.

It’s the first state law enacted by the rookie governor. “Good start, governor,” shouted Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, after Scott put down his pen.

Scott formally signed the legislation Thursday at a Jacksonville school, capping a long political march by Republican leaders. Florida GOP lawmakers have been pushing back against the Florida Education Association for years and got close last year to enacting the merit pay bill – only to have then-Gov. Charlie Crist veto it.

Scott indicated Friday that he’s got plenty more to change in Florida schools.

“We’ve got to get charter schools expanded, we’ve go to give our public schools the opportunity to be run by third parties and be way more innovative,” said Scott — who declined to take questions following the ceremony.

A day after House budget committees squawked about how paltry allocations from Speaker Dean Cannon were forcing  deep program chopping, the Winter Park Republican reshuffled the books.

Cannon found another $75 million to scatter among schools, higher education and the justice budget panels –maybe easing back on some of the axe-wielding. Cannon said he and House budget chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, decided to distribute the legislative lagniappe after seeing how budget subcommittees had done the right thing and focused on statewide spending issues.

On Wednesday, Justice Appropriations Chair Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, bemoaned the cutting his panel was doing.

Wholesale spending cuts would eliminate one-quarter of the state’s more than 2,800 judicial assistants, leaving judges to do much of their own research, scheduling and brief-writing, to save $13.6 million. Judicial salaries also would be scaled-back, letting the state pocket another $11.4 million.

Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa, said the proposed cuts threatened the legal rights of Floridians.

“We are going to wind up with an umpire who can’t see the strike zone,” Grant said of the burden also being put on judges.

After nearly three months on the job, Gov. Rick Scott reached out for the first time yesterday to the members of the state board of education after chairman T. Willard Fair quit over what he called Scott’s heavy-handed handling of Education Commissioner Eric Smith‘s resignation.

During an emergency board meeting by telephone this morning, each of the panel’s five remaining members said they were encouraged that Scott, who on the campaign trail called education one of his top priorities, called them yesterday afternoon.

“I’d never spoken to Gov. Scott before,” said Roberto Martinez, appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush. “It was greatly appreciated.”

Martinez said Scott told him “he recognized the record of accomplishment and service” of Smith and “also recognized the record of leadership by Chairman Fair.”

In a letter to the board yesterday, Fair complained Scott forced Smith out of his position, something Smith denied, and refused to participate in the telephone call.

Martinez said Scott gave him his cell phone number during the lengthy call.

“It was a very encouraging call. It was an excellent call and I greatly appreciated it,” Martinez said.

The board agreed to hire a head-hunter firm to conduct a national search for Smith’s replacement. And they unanimously agreed to put into the record their admiration and support for Fair.

The state constitution gives the governor the authority to appoint the seven members to the board, which is responsible for hiring and firing the state education commissioner.

Fair’s term ended in December, but he stayed on until Scott made his own appointments, something he has not yet done.

T. Willard Fair, chairman of the state Board of Education, has resigned over Gov. Rick Scott’s handling of the resignation of education commissioner Eric Smith, who announced he was stepping down on Monday.

Fair’s term had already expired in December, but has remained on the board until Scott replaces him.

In a letter to board members sent yesterday, Fair, appointed to the board by Gov. Jeb Bush, criticized the manner in which Scott handled Smith’s resignation. Fair essentially accuses Scott of usurping the board’s authority by forcing Smith to resign. The governor-appointed board is charged with hiring and firing commissioners. Fair said that Scott has not met with Smith since the governor took office in January.

Fair wrote that he is “alarmed by the Governor’s dismissive treatment of this Board, which after all, hired Eric Smith, but which was not consulted, regarding the Governor’s desire to divest the State of his services.”

The board is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. “relating to discussion and action the announced departures of the Commissioner of Education and Chair of the State Board of Education,” the Department of Education advised in a press release today.

But Fair said the meeting is a farce.

“In fact, the notion that this Board should immediately commence a “national search” for a new Commissioner, flies in the face of the reality that Governor Scott will choose his new Commissioner. This Board, including its new members, will merely provide the votes that affirm the Governor’s choice. Therefore, it seems pointless to put on a public display that gives the impression that the decision will ultimately rest with the Board,” he wrote.

Read Fair’s letter after the jump.
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A House panel advanced a plan Wednesday that dims the lights on the state’s popular Bright Futures scholarship program — making the merit-based college aid harder to get and less lucrative for students and their parents.

As part of spending cuts coursing through most state programs, top tier Bright Futures recipients would have to earn a 1300 SAT score, up from 1280 now. Second-tier “medallion” students also would need a 1270 SAT, up from 1020 currently, under the House’s $5.7 billion college and university budget proposal.

Community service hours needed to qualify for the scholarships also would be bumped up, according to the House approach.

Bright Futures’ overall allocation would be cut 15 percent, or $33.8 million. With the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee also authorizing tuition hikes of as much as 15 percent, parents will be digging deeper for Florida college costs next fall. (more…)

Cuts to public school funding won’t be nearly as bad as it appeared earlier this week under the Florida Senate plan, budget chief J.D. Alexander said Wednesday morning.

That’s because the spending allocations released this week don’t include about another $1 billion in savings Alexander said he’s making in state employees,’ including teachers’, pay and benefits.

It appears he’s funneling nearly half that to schools, bringing down the cuts to about $300 million from more than $700 proposed earlier this week, Alexander said. That’s the opposite direction the House is headed in with its K-12 spending plan.

“It depends on your view of the world, but in terms of what a school board will have to do to adjust to available funds, our proposal has a much lower broad cut. I think the $700 million was too high,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said.

Without being able to raise new revenue through taxes or fees, Alexander said the savings from cutting health care benefits or requiring state employees to contribute to their pensions is the only way to avoid deeper direct cuts to services and education.

Under Alexander’s plan, state workers would have to contribute less to their pensions than the 5% Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida House are asking.

Just how much?

All will be revealed Monday when Alexander releases his budget proposal.

In a social network experience marked by little socializing but plenty of network snafus, Gov. Rick Scott held his first Facebook townhall Tuesday night answering a few questions from the hundreds pelted at him.

Most of the Internet crowd was rough. The governor was quizzed about his recommended cuts to schools, merit pay for teachers, reducing pensions, and his reluctance to engage the conventional media.

One  Facebook friend from Tampa, Tony Cona, wrote the governor saying, “I’m taking bets right now that in the end you will prove to be the worse thing that ever happened to the state of Florida.”

As he did with a Twitter town hall a few weeks ago, Scott sidestepped his toughest critics. But he did try to defend some of his policies.

While the governor has gotten heat for blocking implementation of a prescription drug database to combat pill mills flourishing in South Florida, Scott on Facebook voiced sympathy.

“This is a significant (problem) for the State. A friend of mine just lost his daughter. We need to focus on the distribution of “narcotics and close down pill mills that are improperly distributing prescriptions,” Scott wrote.

The governor also pushed back in support of his and the Legislature’s support for tying teacher pay to student performance.

“My experience with teachers is they would like to be measured, the measurement need to be fair, and the most effective teachers need to be rewarded with both recognition and better pay,” Scott responded. (more…)

House Democrats doing the math on the public school budget proposal unveiled Tuesday by ruling Republicans released a short list of  “lowlights.”

Per-pupil spending would decline $473 next fall — to $6,327; the lowest level since 2005-06, Democrats said. Overall spending on schools also would drop $1.1 billion, under the House plan, advanced by the PreK-12 budget subcommittee.

The House’s almost 7 percent per-student cut emerged  just a day after the Senate unveiled its own proposal which includes a 6.5 percent reduction. With Gov. Rick Scott having earlier recommended a 10 percent cut, the direction classroom spending is headed is becoming pretty clear even in this early stage of budget work.

Lawmakers managed to stave-off deeper school cuts the past three years, with the help of billions of dollars in stimulus cash from Washington. Last year, alone, $2.5 billion poured into the state treasury — money that has now dried up, leaving a gaping hole.

House Republicans countered, saying Pre-K spending still commands the most state cash in an otherwise lousy year.

““The depth of the budget shortfall is tremendous and every area is likely to see cuts,” said Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera,  R-Miami. “The House budget prioritizes education, with K-12 education receiving the greatest percentage of the general revenue allocation.”

A stark state spending plan, flush with red ink, began taking shape Monday in the state Senate, with school dollars sliced 6.5 percent and a health care proposal on track to save $1 billion in Medicaid spending, much of it from program cuts.

Health and Human Services budget chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, praised the Senate’s $28 billion for maintaining spending on some key program, including funding for homeless, AIDS drug assistance, and the state’s KidCare and Healthy Start insurance programs.

But he acknowledged the Senate — like the House — is ready to recast Medicaid, putting almost 3 million Floridians into managed care programs to trim costs, while also cutting services.

“We’ve heard that the current system is irretrievably broken, so we’re starting a new system,” Negron said. 

A Medicaid pilot program operating in five counties since 2006, including Broward, has been derided as a failure by many critics. But Negron said the new program will look nothing like the pilot program and will not drive frustrated patients to use hospital emergency rooms — one of the costliest venues for care.

But the Senate is banking heavily on its high-wire reform effort. In the budget unveiled Monday, hospitals would lose 10 percent of state funding for treating both in- and outpatient Medicaid recipients — cutting $450 million from the budget. 

 The Medically Needy program, an optional program long paid by the state and federal governments, would be sharply scaled back to save $230 million under the Senate budget — eliminating financial help given transplant patients and other hard-to-insure Floridians.

School funding, meanwhile, would drop 6.5 percent under the Senate plan. In the good-cop, bad-cop approach of budgeters, that’s still the mildest slice: The House has recommended a 7.7 percent per-pupil reduction, while Gov. Rick Scott called for a 10 percent drop.

From The Orlando Sentinel’s Aaron Deslatte:

TALLAHASSEE — Last week, Senate PreK-12 Education Budget Chairman David Simmons said the chamber’s classroom spending plan was essentially break-even for school districts.

That is, per-pupil student funding wouldn’t see much of a cut, at all.

But on Monday, Simmons reported back to his committee with fresh marching orders from Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander, and the new budget math adds up to a $6.5 percent cut for classrooms, equal to about $1 billion.

That’s much closer to the 10 percent cut recommended by Gov. Rick Scott last month.

Sort of. (more…)

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam can’t take over administration of free and reduced lunches in public schools won’t happen, at least for a while.

Under federal law, the state Department of Education must continue to handle the free lunches and other meals unless they get a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture giving Putnam permission to take it over.

Fifty-six percent of Florida school children qualify for the federal lunch program – a 6% increase over hte past two years. To be eligible, a family of four must have an annual income of $28,665 or less.

Putnam proposed taking over the program so he could hook up Florida farmers and schools and get more home-grown fruits and vegetables into kiddies’ diets.

Putnam got a frosty reception from the state Board of Education when he pitched his plan to them earlier this week. The education department would have to request the waiver.

Education department staff say they’re waiting to see if lawmakers approve Putnam’s proposal before they ask the feds for permission to hand the program over to Putnam.

The Senate’s preliminary allocation for education spending is a 2.3 percent drop from last year’s, far less than Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed 10 percent and the House’s initial 7.7 percent cuts.

Senate Pre-K-12 Education Budget Committee Chairman David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, cautioned the committee that today’s figures – a $155.67 drop from last year’s $6,813.14 per-pupil spending – are just a starting point.

“It is subject to change. It is the kind of thing we’re going to have to hope that we can maintain but understand, and I cannot emphasize enough, that these are preliminary numbers,” Simmons said.

Under the Senate plan, public schools could fare even better, Simmons said, by adding back the $554 million in federal funds districts were supposed to have stashed and savings from changes in the state’s pension plan by requiring school district employees to contribute to their retirement.

“Roughly level funding for the Senate proposal – that is under these economic circumstances a significant statement as to the belief int he importance in the investment in education by Senate President Haridopolos and Sen. Alexander,” the senate budget chief, Simmons said.

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