Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law a tax break for businesses ten minutes before he began his state-of-the-state speech this evening.

The measure (HB 7033) will delay about $1.8 billion in unemployment tax payments for Florida businesses that will jump from $8 per worker to $100 per employee on April 1.

The higher tax rate kicks in in April because the number of jobless workers in Florida, among the highest in the nation, has wiped out the trust fund that pays for unemployment benefits.

Putting off the tax hike for two years means that Florida lawmakers today agreed to continue to borrow from the federal government to replenish the fund and rack up $675 million in interest payments. Those costs will be passed on to businesses over the next five years.

“Decisions are being made as we speak. Business owners are trying to determine what they’re going to do next to be able to deal with this Friday’s pay roll. This is what this bill’s about,” said Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah.

The Senate unanimously approved the bill (HB 7033), which the House also unanimously passed earlier today.

With Florida suffering from its highest unemployment in three decades, pumping life into the state’s dismal job market is at the top of almost every lawmaker’s to-do list this year.

“It’s been an economic tsunami,” Gov. Charlie Crist said of the collapsing housing market and spiraling unemployment that has slashed Florida’s tax collections by 17 percent since he took office three years ago.

Crist, like his fellow Republicans in charge of the state Senate and House, will largely look to tax cuts and incentives to spark job creation as the legislature begins its annual spring session Tuesday day.

Story here.

With more than 1 million Floridians out of work, Florida taxpayers are footing the bill for the salaries for out-of-state workers.

This time, it’s Florida Lottery vendor GTECH’s workers in Texas that are the beneficiaries. GTECH’s call center is located in Austin and that’s where calls regarding the Lottery’s on-line tickets and other products are answered.

And lawmakers don’t even know how many jobs are at stake in Texas because the private contractors hired by the state to handle call lines won’t give up their number of employees or where they’re located, according to legislative analyst Emily Leventhal.

Sen. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat who sits on the committee, asked Leventhal how many of the 16 private call centers were located outside Florida.

Only GTECH’s, she told him.

“And do you know how many people the state of Florida is paying to work in Austin, Texas?” Deutch asked.

“I do not,” Leventhal replied.

“I think that would be worthwhile information for this committee,” Deutch said.

An incensed Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander agreed.

“If they take the cash or check they can tell us what we want to know,” said Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Last year, the Department of Children and Families got in hot water because the agency’s food stamp contractor, JP Morgan Chase, routed questions about food stamp services to a call center based in India. The vendor stopped sending the calls overseas and instead sent them to Ohio and Illinois.

The head of the state’s tourism agency also earned the wrath of lawmakers last year when lawmakers found out that calls to Visit Florida were being answered in Missouri. The agency later canceled the contract.

By MICHAEL C. BENDER and DARA KAM

Here are some notes from an interview today with Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach:

FIRST DAY OF SESSION: With bipartisan support to delay unemployment tax payments, the plan is waive the rules and pass it to Gov. Charlie Crist before the end of the first day. The Senate will also name a Jacksonville roadway for the late Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville and debate reforms to the Public Service Commission.

Atwater choked up when speaking of the road designation for King, a former Senate President who passed away last summer.

“Though that may seem as ceremonial, for those of us who had the honor of serving with him, it’s far more than that. It’s really,” Atwater said haltingly, on the verge of tears. “It’s important.”

Also on the first day, the Senate will take up changes to the Public Service Commission that will put into effect suggestions from a grand jury report left on the shelf since 1992 to improve the integrity of the maligned regulatory agency.

LAST DAY OF SESSION: What Atwater doesn’t want to happen is another breakdown in budget negotiations and be forced to extend session past April 30. With that in mind, Atwater is planning on planning to encourage more transparency, which would require more time for the budget process

“I’d like to test some things this session and recommend them to the next administration of the legislature,” Atwater said. “Last year we did our very best. So now, we’re going to try to see if we can lay that down in writing.”

Atwater didn’t say if he planned to specifically include the allocation process (when the two chambers decide how much money to spend on broad areas, like education, health care and transportation), but it sounded like he would:

“I would want every bit of the process to be discussed in public and the conversation completed in public.”

BUDGET PRIORITIES: There will be winners and losers. Atwater said he’s not interested in across-the-board cuts and anything that can be considered a job generator will be more likely to get money.

“We will have to go deeper in some places to create any initiative for job creation: incentives, venture capital funding, all of that,” Atwater said. “I don’t know where those places will be or the depth of those reductions.”

The economic incentives could include lowering the bar for some programs already in existence or loan programs for small businesses.

Atwater’s “seed” programs won’t include the $10 million economic gardening loan incentive hurriedly pushed through by Gov. Charlie Crist more than a year ago that still hasn’t gotten off the ground.

“I can’t tell you that we would measure any level of success there,” he admitted. “We may try again a loan program. We may try some more in the area of venture capital. But that’s fair criticism. We’ve got to get them out on the street and get them working.”

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A race for an open Panhandle state Senate seat may stymie success of a jobs package.

State Rep. Dave Murzin, House Economic Development and Community Affairs committee chairman, took a swipe at the Senate’s jobs package sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz.

Murzin, a Panhandle Republican who is running for a Senate seat neighboring Gaetz’s district, was asked about the Gaetz proposal at an Associated Industries of Florida event in Tallahassee yesterday.

“It’s a great package. If I had a $150 million it might be some good ideas. But quite frankly I don’t have $150 million. I think I stopped counting at about $150 million,” Murzin, R-Pensacola, told the crowd of business lobbyists.

Gaetz’ bill includes a $1,000 tax break for businesses that hire an out of work Floridian and a variety of other corporate tax breaks or incentives to induce them to put the unemployed back on the job and to get them off Medicaid and other state benefits.

Murzin said his package will be more realistic.

“So yeah, we’ll take a look at some stuff but quite frankly we’ll roll out a jobs package, an economic incentives package, an economy package that actually works, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money because …an economic package that Floridians can afford,” Murzin said. “I’m not really into it for the is still trying to figure out exactly how much it will cost and how much it could save).headlines. I’m actually into it to put Floridians back to work.”

Gaetz, who is backing Murzin’s opponent Rep. Greg Evers in the Senate race, expressed tongue-in-cheek surprise at Murzin’s inability to come up with the money to pay for the package. (Gaetz says his staff

“Well, Rep. Murzin is welcome to his opinions. I wish him well this session. And in his future. I wish him well in everything except his aspirations to be a senator. In all other cases I wish him well,” Gaetz, R-Destin, said.

Bernard

The tri-county area is home to the greatest number of Haitian immigrants and has been ground-zero for state and federal Haitian aid efforts.

Newly elected state Rep. Mack Bernard, a West Palm Beach Democrat who was born in Port-au-Prince where the epicenter of the deadly earthquake struck last month, is heading up Palm Beach County’s delegation in the task force, which will include Reps. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, and Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs, and up to 9 other South Florida lawmakers.

Bernard wants better communication from Gov. Charlie Crist, who he said telephoned him the night of the earthquake on Jan. 12 but hasn’t spoken with him since.

Bernard visited Haiti last week. His sister and her three children are now homeless as a result of the disaster, Bernard said.

Crist should appoint a “Haiti czar” to streamline efforts that could be an economic boon to financially-strapped Florida, Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, suggested.

Read the story here.

“It’s that lack of communication, especially from the governor’s office” that is creating frustration for representatives from the tri-county area, which has the state’s largest Haitian immigrant population and is now on the front line providing aid and resources to the ravaged nation, Bernard said.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons asked utility regulators to approve Florida Power & Light Co.’s $1.2 billion rate hike, saying the utility is the county’s largest employer and needed the extra money to help the state go green.

The Public Service Commission yesterday instead slashed FPL’s rate hike to just $75 million and limited the amount of profit the Juno Beach-based utility can earn to 10 percent, far less than the 12.5 percent return on equity it sought.

“While no one - especially in the current economy - looks forward to higher electric bills, FPL’s proposed rate increase is necessary in order to make a greater investment in green technology, energy sources that will ultimately protect the consumer from uncertainties and bill fluctuations in the future,” Koons wrote in a letter to commissioners on Jan. 5 expressing his personal opinion on the rate case.

FPL President Armando Olivera said the company will immediately halt modernization projects at its Riviera Beach and Cape Canaveral power plants and cease moving forward with most of its efforts to build two new nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point facility.

He said the projects could have brought 20,000 new jobs to Florida over the next five years.

Gov. Charlie Crist took credit for the Public Service Commission’s unanimous decision yesterday to grant FPL a $75 million-a-year rate hike, just a fraction of $1.2 billion the Juno Beach-based utility had sought.

Crist revamped the panel with two new appointments, Commissioners David Klement and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens,” late last year and appointed Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano and Nathan Skop in 2007. Crist’s appointments were intended to create a more consumer-friendly commission that in previous years when PSC votes were considered to lean more toward the utilities it regulates.

Asked if he had an impact on yesterday’s vote, Crist said: “It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?”

The FPL decision came on the heels of a vote Monday in which the PSC denied Progress Energy Florida’s $500 million rate hike request and ordered them to repay $23 million in depreciation costs to consumers.

Crist last year effectively fired two commissioners by not reappointing them and the PSC delayed votes on the issues until the new commissioners took office this month.

Crist dismissed Florida Power & Light Co. President Armando Olivera’s assertion that the PSC vote will cost the state 20,000 new jobs from projects it is now putting on hold.

“Well we certainly don’t hope for that. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think that what happened is the Public Service Commission is an independent body that has a duty to perform their job. I think they did exactly that,” Crist said.

Florida’s unemployment rate jumped again last month, climbing to 11.5 percent with more than 1 million workers out of a job.

The state’s unemployment rate climbed .2 percent from October’s jobless rate and is 4.8 percentage points higher than it was in November last year.

Florida’s unemployment rate is 1.5 percent higher than the nation’s jobless rate and is the highest in 34 years. (more…)

Florida’s jobless rate remained at 10.7 percent in July, 1.3 percent points higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, the Agency for Workforce Innovation reported today.

The unemployment rate in June and July is the highest in the past 34 years. In October 1975, the jobless rate was 11 percent.

The rate remained steady although the state has already spent more than $944 million of federal stimulus money on unemployment benefits and resources.