Teamsters have ousted the Florida Police Benevolent Association as the union representing state correctional officers, ending almost four decades of dominance by the PBA.

In balloting for a bargaining unit, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters drew 4,097 votes to 3,015 for the PBA. The International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) was supported by 116 officers and another 154 called for no union, according to results made public Thursday by the state’s Public Employees Relations Commission.

The Teamsters union ran a intense campaign for the past six months. They raised questions among officers about the PBA’s representation at a time when pay freezes and legislative efforts to close prisons and privatize others in South Florida heightened anxiety among the state’s 20,000 correctional officers.

“I think the officers showed in this election that in tough times, they want a tough union to represent them,” said Leigh Strope, a Teamsters’ spokeswoman.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander is turning up the heat on the University of South Florida, after the State University System’s Board of Governor’s approved a slow rollout of plans to make USF-Polytechnic an independent university in his home Polk County.

The Lake Wales Republican wants the State University System to investigate USF President Judy Genshaft and other school leaders for what he said was misleading the system’s Board of Governors on details about construction at the Polytechnic’s campus. The BOG set benchmarks for the Lakeland school to achieve before it’s considered as the state’s 12th public university, but stopped far short of giving the school outright independence.

“As Polytechnic moves forward and begins the necessary steps to transition from a regional campus to Florida’s 12^th university, I believe it is imperative to correct the record and draw public attention to this campaign of misinformation,” Alexander said, in a letter to BOG Chair Ava Parker.

A Tallahassee judge has ordered Gov. Rick Scott‘s administration to “cease and desist” the bidding process for a prison privatization plan she earlier ruled was unconstitional.

Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford late Friday night put the brakes on Department of Corrections officials’ attempt to bypass her earlier decision that the way lawmakers ordered the privatization of the 18-county region in the southern portion of the start violated the state constitution.

In her order, Fulford pointed out that corrections officials reneged on a pledge made Thursday not to move forward with the bidding before a Nov. 16 hearing. Later the same day, the department announced it was reopening the procurement and bids would be accepted after Nov. 10, Fulford wrote.

Fulford ruled on Sept. 30 that lawmakers should not have included the privatization plan in the must-pass state budget but instead should have ordered it in a stand-alone bill.

Scott opted not to appeal, but Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a last-minute appeal late Monday on behalf of state lawmakers, setting the stage for Friday’s court showdown.

In granting the emergency stay to the Florida Police Benevolent Association, Fulford wrote that “defendants are not likely to succeed on the merits on appeal.”

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House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders offered strategic advice Wednesday to ruling Republicans while making a few political predictions, as well.

The Key West lawmaker said he expected that GOP leaders will deliberately slow down budget talks next year – likely leaving the bulk of budget-making for a special session.

 When lawmakers convene in January, Saunders forecast that the Republican-controlled Legislature will move quickly to approve a redistricting plan, submitting it for court approval.

 If rejected by judges, that would give lawmakers time to craft another plan before the scheduled end of the two-month regular session.

The budget, though, will be kept back by leaders, Saunders said, to maintain control over rank-and-file lawmakers.

“It’d be nice to have that budget still sitting out there, to have some leverage over your members,” said Saunders, who a decade ago helped lead redistricting for the then-Democratic majority.

Saunders said that because of declining population in some Republican-heavy areas – including Pinellas County – as many as eight GOP House members may find themselves scrambling for political turf now held by a fellow House Republican.

Those wounded by final decisions are likely to have little loyalty to leaders, Saunders suggested.

“There’s going to be a lot more upset Republican members than Democratic members,” Saunders said.

Democrats? “They’ve pretty much bottomed us out. It’d be hard to draw maps worse than what we have now he said.

Staggered by two major budget shortfalls in the past year, the state court system needs a more reliable cash source than the rollercoastering foreclosure fees lawmakers have steered its way, officials told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Polk County Circuit Court Judge John Laurent, who helped lead a workgroup of  judges and court clerks, urged the Senate Budget Committee to allow courts to keep more of the fees and service charges they already collect, but which are skimmed off for use in other state budget areas.

Judges and clerks also recommended that certain basic costs — salaries for judges, interpreters and court reporters — should come from state dollars, rather than from fees, the workgroup said in its report to lawmakers.

Close to $300 million in revenue raised by the courts are plowed into general revenue and other areas of government, officials said. If courts had been authorized to keep a larger portion of that money, they would have avoided shortfalls that are projected to demand $153 million in emergency loans in just over a year.

Court clerks needed a $44.2 million bailout last year and are seeking another $36 million to get through March 2012.

Earlier this year, the shortfall forced chief judges in Palm Beach County and other counties to consider employee layoffs, furloughs and other emergency measures. 

“This is not a question of us overspending our budget,” said Laurent, a former state senator. “The moneys have not been appropriated to our trust fund to support our budget.”

Central to the court’s woes: foreclosure fees.

 The trust fund that powers the $1 billion court and clerk system draws the bulk of its financing through these feees. But the court system’s cash flow was disrupted late last year by a nationwide freeze on foreclosures by most major lenders.

“It’s not a good, stable situation,” conceded Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, also questioned the Legislature’s approach in making the court system so reliant on fees.

Without providing specifics, Negron said some fees charged Floridians for court activities are too high — warning that it could lead to legal decisions that amounted to ”cash-register justice.”

“The court system has become too dependent on churning out revenue,” Negron said, adding that more state dollars should be directed to courts. ”This thing has gotten out of whack.”

The workgroup’s full report is here:    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/

A coalition of religious and anti-gambling groups are uniting to put pressure on lawmakers in the hopes of killing a proposal that would allow up to three Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida.

The Florida Catholic Conference, the Florida Baptist Convention, Florida Family Action and Florida Casino Watch held a press conference Tuesday morning to declare war on the casino proposal, sponsored by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican whose district is dominated by Palm Beach County, and Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami.

Representatives of the religious groups objected to the “destination resorts” in part because, they said, gambling victimizes the poor and is accompanied by social costs such as addiction, prostitution, bankruptcy and suicide.

“This is the big Kahuna that’s been brought to the table to us. And we’ve shown up to say, ‘no thanks,’” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, a former head of the state Christian Coalition. He called the casino plan “the biggest brand change” in Florida.

Florida Family Action head John Stemberger, who also heads FFA’s parent group Florida Family Policy Council, named defeating the proposal his organization’s chief objective during the legislative session that ends early in March.

Stemberger plans to use the Internet to expose lawmakers’ votes on the issue with a “Wall of Fame” and “Wall of Shame” and is asking legislators to sign an anti-gambling pledge. Stemberger achieved success with a similar campaign in 2008 when he shepherded a ballot initiative onto the ballot and into the state constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage.

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Lawyers for the state were grilled Wednesday by Leon Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford over the Legislature’s move to rewrite the Florida Retirement System and pull 3 percent payroll contributions from some 700,000 government workers.

Lawmakers were able to use the more than $1 billion from teachers, state workers and other public employees as savings last spring, helping cover what then was an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall. The Florida Education Association and other public employee unions argued before Fulford that the change is an unconstitutional violation of collective bargaining guarantees. 

But attorneys Doug Hinson and David Godofsky, from the blue-chip law firm, Alston & Bird, representing the state, argued that past case law gives lawmakers authority to make such revisions — which they labeled a “modification.”

In an unusual move, Fulford left the bench to get a better look at slides Hinson was projecting on a courtroom viewing screen. En route to the floor, Fulford delivered a stunning message:

“I disagree with you,” she said.

Fulford, who last month ruled lawmakers violated the constitution by approving a massive prison privatization plan for South Florida in the budget — rather than a separate bill — said she doesn’t know how she’ll decide the pension case.  But she acknowledged having a “fundamental difference,” with the state’s interpretation of its authority.

Arguments continue this afternoon.

Florida’s budget hole for next year was officially put at $2 billion Thursday — and the revised forecast from state economists also put it in the red through 2015.

The shortfalls reverse what had been an optimistic forecast delivered to lawmakersonly last month — by the same analysts. But that was before the European debt crisis deepened and sent shockwaves through consumer confidence across the nation, including the Sunshine State.

Tax collections “hit a wall,” in mid-summer, said Amy Baker, head of the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

Baker and other analysts told the Senate Budget Committee they have downgraded earlier state revenue forecasts by $600 million for the current year and almost $1 billion for next year. Rising program costs — especially in public schools and Medicaid — also must be layered-in, resulting in what she said would be a $2 billion shortfall facing lawmakers when they begin crafting the 2012-13 budget in January.

The Senate Budget Committee took the bad news in stride Thursday. But Chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said he also feared that if the economy stumbled further, tax collections wouldfall even further off projections.

“We could have more challenging numbers,” Alexander conceded, adding, “or they could be better.”

A day after unveiling his latest seven-step themed plan – this one toward creating jobs and spurring economic development — Gov. Rick Scott turned into saleman-in-chief Thursday, pitching his plan at appearances in Jacksonville, Panama City and on talk radio.

Scott gained some additional talking points with Congress ending a deadlock that spanned two presidencies and approving a series of free trade agreements, including those with Panama and Colombia.

In his jobs’ plan, Scott highlighted the prospect of enhanced trade with Central and South America as a motive behind his push for more public works projects at Florida’s 14 deepwater sea ports.

“Free trade with Panama and Colombia will benefit Florida’s economy and businesses for years to come,” Scott said after the bipartisan vote in Congress.  “By eliminating the need to pay tariffs in order to export Florida goods and products to those expanding economies, Florida companies will now be able to invest their money in creating jobs.”

Scott on Thursday is scheduled to tour an aviation center at Jacksonville’s Cecil Field and an industrial and retail complex near the year-old Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport outside Panama City.

Gov. Rick Scott laid out the “job creation and economic growth agenda” he’s been hinting at lately — a wide-ranging plan aimed at repealing more than 1,000 state rules and regulations, reducing the corporate income tax, and pouring money into port and road projects to spur more jobs.

The Republican governor — who has promised to create 700,000 jobs in seven years — has conveniently settled on seven steps toward jump-starting Florida’s sputtering economy.

Scott unveiled the plan Wednesday morning at a metals and plastics plant in Orlando. With an election year coming, Scott also used the event to draw contrasts between his plan and the jobs proposal pushed by President Obama, now languishing in Congress after a negative vote Tuesday in the Senate.

“Unlike our elected leaders in Washington, D.C., I realize that it is Florida’s families and businesses, taking risks with their ideas, capital and time, that create jobs and grow an economy,” Scott said. “We will continue to attract new jobs by consistently lettting businesses know through our actions that we want Florida to be their home.”

Scott’s latest proposal builds on many of the themes he endorsed in his first-year as governor.

 After scaling back benefits for Florida’s almost 1 million unemployed — to reduce costs for businesses — Scott now wants to require job training for those drawing assistance. He also wants to double the corporate income tax exemption approved last year by the Legislature, an increase that would eliminate the levy for about 25 percent of the companies still paying.

Scott also puts more pressure on state colleges and universities to produce more graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — which he said will help promote economic growth. He also wants the K-12 system to do its part in advancing STEM education.

“Florida will become the nation’s leader in job creation and economic growth by consistently doing the right things month after month to create the nation’s premier environment to start, relocated or expand a business,” Scott said.

Gov. Rick Scott is beginning his latest push for jump-starting Florida’s economy, offering a preview at a lunchtime speech Tuesday in Tallahassee and a new video his office prepared.

Scott plans to unveil much of his legislative and budget package for 2012 in the days leading up to his taking part in an Enterprise Florida trade mission to Brazil, Oct. 23-27.

In the video, the first-year governor touts tax cuts, shrinking the size of government, and fanning the flickering flames of the economy to where Florida added more than 87,000 jobs since January. No mention of the still-brutal unemployment rate: 10.7 percent in August.

 ”The proposals you will see reflect my three most important jobs as Governor— getting our residents back to work by growing quality jobs in the private sector; keeping the cost of living low for all Floridians; and building a world-class education system through continued improvements in our K-12 and higher education institutions,” Scott said. “These ideas are based on the countless stories I have received from Floridians who have contacted my office… and from the personal conversations I’ve had while traveling the state over the past year.”

See Scott’s video here:  http://bit.ly/nEL0LK

The amount of cash Florida lawmakers will have on hand to build next year’s state budget looks likely to drop from earlier predictions by between $1.4 billion and $1.7 billion, according to estimates unveiled Tuesday by state economists.

The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference, a gathering of analysts representing the Legislature, state Department of Revenue and Gov. Rick Scott’s office, are meeting most of the day to update their latest forecast of tax collections.

 The amounts settled on Tuesday will guide the budget proposal Scott will present later this year to the Legislature — and go a long way toward shaping the spending plan lawmakers put together when they begin the 2012 session in January.

The House budget committee last week said that because of declining tax receipts and rising costs — particularly in public schools and Medicaid spending – that a shortfall of $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion was expected, likely resulting in another round of program cuts and employee layoffs next year.

Tuesday’s revenue forecast looks likely to bolster those storm cloud predictions. Sales tax collections — which provides about three-quarters of the state’s general revenue — is the root of the state’s problem.

In a faltering economy,  sales tax receipts are expected to be down as much as $881.4 million next year from the estimating conference’s forecast earlier this year. Sales tax dollars also are off earlier estimates by as much as $257.5 million in the current budget.

Rising government costs and crumbling tax collections are leaving lawmakers facing a $2 billion budget shortfall next year, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said Thursday, a prospect few saw coming only months ago.

“Everything is on the table,” said Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, although he acknowled that tax increases are not. “But in June, I thought we’d be in a continuation budget. All the signs had us pointing in the right direction….But now we’re very concerned with revenue shortfalls.”

The House budget committee earlier Thursday estimated that lawmakers could come up between $1.1 billion and $2.2 billion short next year. The current year’s $69 billion budget was balanced by cutting spending, pulling cash from trust funds, and making government employees pay 3 percent of their pay to help cover pension costs.

A similar balancing act looks likely to commence in January, when lawmakers convene the 2012 session.

Florida economists are scheduled to meet Tuesday. They are expected to revise the state’s revenue forecast downward, with tax collections declining in the increasingly fragile economy.

Glimmers of trouble were evident this week, when funding for courts, road projects and school construction all reported shortfalls linked to the economy. But the news is a sharp departure from early last month, when economists forecast three years of clear budget sailing.

At that time, though, another leading senator, Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, conceded lawmakers would be wise not to celebrate over what appeared to be sufficient revenues to cover state spending through 2015.

Gaetz, in line to lead the Senate following next year’s elections, said last month that Florida’s economy is “on a knife’s edge.”

“We can’t move much, one way or the other, without some real damage,” Gaetz said.

House Budget Chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, said next year was beginning to look all to familiar.

 “2012 is going to be another challenging year as we face a potential $2 billion shortfall; however, I am confident we will once again solve our budget challenges while keeping taxes low and encouraging private sector economic activity,” Grimsley said. 

Although he supports prison privatization and is committed to a broad expansion of it in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he disapproves of the legislature’s use of the state budget to establish policy – exactly how lawmakers ordered the privatization this spring.

“I should have the power to veto things that are major policy changes. I got elected as governor to mamke decisions on behalf of all the citizens of the state and to watch how all the money was spent. I ran a whole campaign on accountability,” Scott told reporters after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

Scott appeared to be siding with a Tallahassee judge who ruled last week that the legilsature’s inclusion of the prison privatization effort in the state budget was unconstitutional.

In her ruling against Scott’s administration last week, Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford wrote that, if the legislature wanted to expand the prison privatization, it “must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act.’”

Scott said he hasn’t decided yet whether to appeal Fulford’s ruling, but was confident the 18-county region privatization of 29 prisons ordered by lawmakers would eventually take place.

“We’re going to do prison privatization in the state as long as we save money. I believe that we’re going to save a lot of money,” he said. During his campaign for governor, Scott said he wanted to slash prison spending by $1 billion – about half of DOC’s total budget.

Still, Scott said he’d like it if lawmakers restrict the budget to spending matters.

“That would be nice,” he said.

UPDATE: Gov. Rick Scott has appealed the appellate ruling ordering former DOC Secretary Ed Buss to give a deposition in the prison privatization lawsuit. Scott’s lawyers are asking that the full First District Court of Appeals reconsider yesterday’s three-judge panel’s ruling.
Scott spokesman Lane Wright said the governor’s office is appealing the decision about the deposition on principle because state law gives high-ranking officials immunity from testifying in lawsuits.
“It’s not about this specific case. It’s about all cases. The doctrine protecting high-ranking officials from being deposed is a bedrock principle of Florida law. It’s about the principle of the thing,” Wright said.

An appeals court ordered former Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Buss, ousted by Gov. Rick Scott last month, to testify in a lawsuit over prison privatization filed by the union that represents correctional officers.

The First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee had temporarily halted Buss’s deposition last week, overturning a lower court ruling ordering him to be deposed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which filed the lawsuit.

But yesterday the appellate court agreed that Buss must give his deposition. Scott’s administration tried to block Buss’s testimony because Florida law protects high-ranking officials from having to testify in most court cases.

On Sept. 15, Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford ordered Buss to give his deposition, agreeing with the union in her ruling that the former secretary is “reasonably likely to have unique discoverable knowledge of potentially relevant subject matter.”

Scott forced Buss to resign late last month citing “differences in philosophy and management styles arose which made the separation in the best interests of the state.” One of the reasons for Buss’s ouster was his apparently less-than-enthusiastic support of the privatization of the 30 prisons from Manatee County to Indian River County south to the Keys.

Lawmakers ordered all of the prisons in the 18-county region south of Polk County to the Florida Keys to be taken over by a private vendor in the budget passed this spring. The PBA is objecting that including the policy change in the must-pass spending plan is unconstitutional.

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A judge ordered former Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Buss to testify in a lawsuit about the state’s privatization of prisons in the southern part of Florida.

Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford denied the state’s request to keep Buss, fired by Gov. Rick Scott late last month, from having to give a deposition in the lawsuit filed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association.

Buss left the agency amid the privatization of more than one-third of the state’s prisons, the largest privatization effort in the country.

His abrupt resignation came after Scott’s office twice rebuked the former Indiana prisons chief over state contracts and after the termination of a contract with Elizabeth “Betty” Gondles, one of Buss’s hand-picked aides, for a possible conflict of interest with the privatization of the department’s health services.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, representing Scott’s administration in the lawsuit, argued that, because he is no longer secretary, Buss should not have to give a deposition.

But Fulford sided with the PBA, saying that Buss is “reasonably likely to have unique discoverable knowledge of potentially relevant subject matter” and that the PBA had tried unsuccessfully to get the information elsewhere.

The PBA is challenging the privatization, alleging that it is unconstitutional because it was included in proviso language in the state budget instead of a stand-alone bill creating state policy.

A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29.

Florida TaxWatch, the business-backed public policy group, has come up with more than $4.1 billion in potential state savings — if lawmakers and state government implement 135 cost-cutting recommendations.

Among the highlights: increasing good-behavior gain time for prison inmates, expanding electronic monitoring of criminals, and cutting back on stiff penalties for marijuana and cocaine possession. Reducing Medicaid fraud — which has bedeviled officials at the state and federal levels — could save $223.8 million alone, a TaxWatch cost-saving task force found.

TaxWatch said similar recommendations made since 2009 have saved the state more than $1 billion.

Some of the recommendations appear obvious: urging state agencies to buy generics over name-brand products could save $305 million, the organization said. And some of the ideas show some out-of-the-box thinking: selling ads on some DOT road signs could pull in $75 million, TaxWatch estimated.

Some proposals also carry plenty of controversy. Boosting eligibility requirements for students earning Bright Futures scholarships, eliminating the state’s traditional pension plan, ending the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Program for public employees are put in play, but would surely face stiff opposition from some fronts in the Legislature.

The full report is at www.FloridaTaxWatch.org

A legislative panel gave Gov. Rick Scott’s administration approval Wednesday for a $3.4 million grant drawn from the federal Affordable Care Act, the measure backed by President Obama which Florida’s Republican chief executive ridicules regularly.

The Legislative Budget Commission agreed to take the cash to provide home visiting services to at-risk families. But Sens. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, and Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, urged lawmakers to reject the funding, warning that the program’s services were murky and that if federal dollars dry up, the state could be left covering the cost.

“It’s overly intrusive,” Negron said, adding he was wary of what he called the government’s “amorphous assistance.”

Scott and the state’s Republican-led Legislature has drawn national attention for rejecting federal grants aimed at moving nursing home patients back into their homes and providing in-home counseling to families where child abuse was a looming threat. Funding for these services and others were turned down because they stem from the Affordable Care Act — which many in the GOP deride as ObamaCare.

The Legislative Budget Commission, though, went along with the Scott administration’s request to accept this latest round of grant money Wednesday. A Republican majority on the panel endorsed the move, chiefly because rejecting it would have made Florida ineligible for as much as $100 million in future learning and development grants under the federal Race to the top legislation.

House budget chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, said she was offended by the linkage. But she made it clear she didn’t like the program and felt such steps created a dependency for at-risk families.

“We have generations of individuals depending on government,” Grimsley said, adding, “it’s a no-win situation.”

Despite stocks tumbling Friday after a grim U.S. job market report, a Florida legislative panel next week is expected to sign off on some relatively good economic news.

The state’s Legislative Budget Commission, comprised of House and Senate members, will be asked Wednesday to accept a new economic forecast showing lawmakers should have enough cash next year to meet the state’s “critical and high priority” needs. That basically matches current year spending, along with anticipated growth.

Lawmakers also can comfortably build in a $1 billion budget reserve, according to the Long-Range Financial Outlook analysts will put before the commission.

The three-year forecast also doesn’t call for any revenue shortfall through 2015. It’s the first time economists have given lawmakers such an all-clear horizon since voters in 2006 approved creation of  the long-term planning document.

A return of relatively steady tax collections — combined with deep budget-cutting by lawmakers last spring — is credited for the rosier outlook.

Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican controlled Legislature covered an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall by cutting spending for schools, health and social service programs, and making government workers in the Florida Retirement System contribute 3 percent of their pay to the state pension plan. 

Still, analysts also cautioned that the steadily softening economy could dim some of the dollar projections going before lawmakers next week.

Despite a credit rating downgrade and more than 100 layoffs, Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday he supported the dramatic changes occuring at the South Florida Water Management District, saying “absolutely the right things are happening.”

Legislation signed into law by Scott cuts property taxes across Florida’s five water management districts by $210 million. The South Florida district, the state’s largest, is slicing spending by $120 million, or about 30 percent of its property-tax collections, sparking scores of layoffs and buyouts.

The financial hit also led the ratings agency, Standard & Poor, to downgrade the district’s credit rating a notch, to AA+. Although the district has no immediate plans to issue bonds, S&P’s action could raise the future cost of borrowing by water managers.

“Why should they be out borrowing more money?” Scott said. “They should be doing what the state is doing…especially in tough times like this. What would you do in your own house? What do Floridians have to do now? They have to watch every penny.”

“That’s exactly what they should expect out of government,” Scott concluded.