Gov. Rick Scott – whose mantra is “Let’s Get to Work” – is paying $7.3 million to 126 aides for image-boosting and spin, according to a report released by Florida TaxWatch today.

Scott also hired 71 legislative affairs – many of them former campaign workers – staff for a total of $4.3 million a year. On the campaign trail, Scott questioned the need for legislative affairs staff.

The TaxWatch report comes as lawmakers are grappling with slashing $3.8 billion from last year’s budget.

The combined costs for Scott’s PR pros – including four in his own office – and the LADs is $11.7 million. Without benefits, that comes to $975,048 per month, or $32,056 per day.

“There is no excuse for government waste at any level at any time,” TaxWatch president Dominic Calabro said in a statement. “Every tax dollar spent should gain the highest return for the taxpayer. In a budget year where critical programs are being cut to balance the budget, it is time that our leaders take a serious look at all positions, determine which are essential to the mission of our government and cut the excess. This is what Florida families and businesses have been doing and must continue to streamline. The levels and number of administrative and support bureaucratic staff has been forced to shrink, but too many in our state bureaucracy defy the gravity of downsizing.”

TaxWatch is a business-backed Tallahassee organization whose mission is to ferret out wasteful government spending.

Floridians so far have received less federal stimulus money than any of their fellow Americans, despite an unemployment rate here that ranks among the highest in the country and a budget crisis that few states can match.

“It just shows how inept Florida’s government officials are,” Florida TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro said. “Relying on Washington has always been a bad deal for Florida.”

Florida has received more total dollars than all but three other states from a stimulus pot of about $198 billion so far for infrastructure projects and social services, according to figures reported this week by The Wall Street Journal.¹ That total includes money Congress left for states to divide among themselves and other dollars that federal departments have already disbursed.

But Florida received just $505 per person, which ranks last among the 50 states, all U.S. territories combined and Washington, D.C., according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of the Journal’s data.

The numbers raise significant questions about the stimulus program, which President Obama said during a February stop in Fort Myers would help curtail the state’s rising unemployment rate.²

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1. Wall Street Journal, 06/30/09: Stimulus Spending, Breakdown by State
2. Remarks of President Obama, 02/10/09, Fort Myers.