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 Florida Senate will kick off the 60-day 2010 legislative session at about 9 a.m. setting off a day of pageantry culminating with Gov. Charlie Crist’s prime-time state-of-the-state speech this evening.
Stay tuned to postonpolitics.com for continuous blogs throughout the day, beginning with the Senate session at 9 a.m., followed by the House session at 10 a.m. and then later sessions in the afternoon. Then keep Post’ed with Crist’s final state-of-the-state address at 6 p.m.
Expect to hear lots of talk about jobs, jobs, jobs and what the legislature and Crist want to do to help small businesses weather the prolonged economic storm.
The House and Senate plan to pass a delay of the unemployment compensation tax hike that could increase taxes on some businesses up to 5,000 percent unless lawmakers act quickly.
The business tax increase is necessary to replenish the trust fund that pays out-of-work Floridians and to repay the federal government $1.1 billion the state borrowed after the fund ran out of money last year.
Last year, lawmakers approved an increase in the unemployment tax to speed up the repayment of the federal loans and beef up the trust fund.
But the increases, originally signed off on by the business community, turned out to be significantly higher than expected, ranging from 21 percent to more than 5,000 percent.
The minimum rate for employers with a good employment track record is slated to skyrocket from $8.40 to $100.30 per employee per year unless lawmakers do something by April 1.
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.
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.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties are putting together a legislative task force to help streamline relief to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
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.
“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.
First, the good news: Florida’s economic woes have hit bottom, the legislature’s chief economist Amy Baker told the Senate yesterday.
Now, the bad news: The state’s unemployment rate is expected to climb to 12 percent as early as Friday when the most recent job numbers are released, Baker said.
And more bad news for lawmakers as they struggle to craft a budget with up to $3.3 billion – about 4 percent – less than they had for this year’s $66.5 billion spending plan.
Although the national recession is over, Florida’s not going to show an economic recovery for at least another year, Baker and University of Florida economist David Denslow told the Ways and Means Committee, which about 30 of the 40-member chamber attended after Senate President Jeff Atwater asked them to sit in.
“We think we’ve hit bottom and we’re going to hover around the bottom for a wile before we start picking up,” Baker said.
The economy will start picking up next spring, she said, but even with normal growth rates, the recovery is coming off a very low base level so the turn-around will be very slow.
It will be three years “before you’re going to be out of the hole on a lot of measures,” Baker said.
On the other side of the fourth floor rotunda, House Democrats wrote a letter to GOP leaders saying they don’t like their approach in determining what the state’s critical needs are.
They want to look not only at expenditures but at revenues as well. (Translation: higher taxes?)
But that’s not likely to happen on the Senate side.
Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, told his members yesterday he “won’t extract another dollar” from Floridians.
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 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.
Gov. Charlie Crist made an impromptu promotion of Agency for Workforce Innovation chief Cynthia Lorenzo this morning by uttering a single sentence.
Lorenzo has been the temporary head of the department, which handles unemployment claims and early childhood education, since February.
“You’re interim? Why is that?” Crist asked Lorenzo at a morning powwow with his agency heads to discuss implementation of the federal stimulus boost. Lorenzo didn’t answer.
“I think you’re not interim anymore,” Crist said.
The governor quickly checked with his chief of staff Eric Eikenberg to make sure the promotion was legit.
“Chief, I’m allowed to do that?” Crist asked. Eikenberg nodded.
“You deserve it. And it’s the right thing to do,” Crist said.
Lorenzo, who was deputy secretary at the agency for two years before taking over in February, later said she had no idea her promotion would take place in public today.
“It was spontaneous. It was an audible at the line,” Crist confirmed.
The Florida Department of Education paid $12,000 for four months of advertising on the Sayfie Review, a political website owned by Justin Sayfie, a lobbyist, GOP consultant and former top advisor to Gov. Jeb Bush.
The state is advertising its “Ready to Work” program that certifies workers for certain jobs. The program is run by DOE in conjunction with the Agency for Workforce Innovation.
The money comes from about $11 million the state spends on the program annually. The certificates let employers know how well applicants can read, write and perform basic math.
“When you advertise with SayfieReview.com, you are instantly grabbing the attention of the major decision makers and opinion leaders in the State of Florida,” the Sayfie Review’s website promises.
The site is a regular staple for Capitol movers and shakers but it’s unclear how many literacy-certified job seekers routinely click on the site.
The credentialing program also includes a “job profiling” component in which companies pay $2,000 for an assessment of what their workers do. The research is performed by the University of North Florida.
A controversial Central Florida rail project appeared mysteriously in the Senate budget plan today not long before Senate Democratic leaders demanded that the $641 million for the plan be spent elsewhere.
The language was not included in the budget package vetted by the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee but wound up in its budget anyway.
“This is a backdoor approach to legislation,” said Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson of Tallahassee who earlier in the day dubbed the CSX commuter rail project the “choo-choo to nowhere…even Mickey Mouse can’t use.”
Proposed legislation for the commuter rail deal has yet to be approved by the House or the Senate, making the maneuver all the more devious, Lawson said.
And with a $6 billion spending gap, lawmakers should spend the money putting people back to work on road projects the rail project money could be spent on. (more…)
Florida’s seasonably adjusted unemployment rate was 9.4 percent in February, up from 8.8 percent in January, according to the Agency for Workforce Innovation.
That’s 1.3 percent higher than the national rate and 4.2 percent higher than a year ago.
About 500,000 Floridians currently receive unemployment benefits.
St. Lucie County’s unemployment rate climbed to 12.7 percent, nearly double from the previous year.
GOP state lawmakers are at odds over whether to accept $444 million in federal stimulus funds that would expand the number of unemployed workers eligible for unemployment benefits.
Gov. Charlie Crist earlier today urged lawmakers to consider expanding the types of workers eligible for unemployment compensation so the state can draw down $444 million in federal stimulus aid to pay for the benefits.
He said that House Republican concerns that taking the money would hike businesses’ taxes long after the stimulus money dries up could be resolved by passing a bill that agrees to undo the expanded benefits after a certain length of time.
But within hours, staff at the Agency for Workforce Innovation, which handles unemployment claims, released requested information cautioning against taking the money.
Gov. Charlie Crist encouraged House Republicans to take $444 million in federal stimulus money that would give 40,000 more jobless workers unemployment benefits.
House Majority Leader Adam Hasner is balking at taking the money because he believes that it would cause businesses’ unemployment taxes to go up after the stimulus money dries up.
But a national employment group found that businesses’ taxes would go up anyway and taking the money would actually be a saving for them in the long run.
Crist said he’s sympathetic to the House’s worries about the impact on businesses.
But, he went on: “They’re lawmakers though. Maybe they could come up with a law that would say we’ll take the stimulus…for x amount of years and not have to continue and then keep the rates down.”
Jobless Floridians will start getting an extra $25 per week in their unemployment checks, Gov. Charlie Crist announced today.
“We are at a high-water mark, if you will, as it relates to unemployment in the state – about a 16-year high,” Crist told reporters today. “It’s important to extend unemployment benefits as much as we possibly can to help people get through this tough time.”
The extra dough is part of a $345 million to unemployment benefits included in the federal stimulus package. The weekly boost will continue through next July for claims filed before December of this year.
The increase went into effect Feb. 22, and those receiving unemployment benefits at that time or later will also receive a retroactive payment without having to apply for it.
The latest grim news about the state’s emaciated economy is making it harder to get the federal stimulus money aimed at boosting Florida’s finances on the streets.
That means a (coincidentally) $1.3 billion cut to the state’s five-year road plan. Transportation officials are now trying to figure out what that impact would be on the stimulus-backed projects.
Lawmakers had hoped to pass a budget bill to spend the federal money as early as this week, but chances of that happening now are unlikely.
If unemployment above 14 percent in some regions and a one out of 10 Floridians on food stamps isn’t bad enough, now unscrupulous spammers have launched stimulus scams on unsuspecting web surfers.
Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles Bronson issued an alert today warning Floridians about Internet ploys involving federal stimulus money.
One of the scams sent by e-mail promises grant dollars and asks consumers to provide their bank account number and other personal information that could result in identity theft, Bronson cautioned.
Another swindle asks consumers to pay an up-front fee for a grant or list of available grants.
“It’s clear that criminals are preying on the public’s desperation and using the stimulus plan to con people out of their hard-earned money,” Bronson said in a press release. “They should just delete these emails as quickly as possible and understand that the federal government is not providing stimulus money over the Internet.”
Already frustrated jobless Floridians have more angst in store when trying to deal with the agency responsible for unemployment.
The Agency for Workforce Innovation can’t answer the phones and isn’t handing over the extra $25 a week to those receiving unemployment benefits. Agency officials said yesterday the weekly payments should begin by the end of March.
The 10,000 telephone calls coming into the agency have so overwhelmed the 1,012 phone lines that help-seekers end up getting nothing but busy signals. Lawmakers okayed an emergency $6.3 million to set up a private call center to handle about 5,000 calls a day that go unanswered.
But jobless folks shouldn’t start dialing yet.
The call center won’t be operational until July 1, agency officials said.
The $1.3 billion in federal stimulus money approved for Florida to build new roads is purported to create or save 30,000 jobs. The federally-funded transportation projects are expected to be the first out of the stimulus to actually put unemployed workers back on the job.
But the 800,000 out-of-work Floridians banking on getting one of those construction or engineering jobs may be sitting on the sidelines until late summer or fall at the earliest before they start cashing in stimulus-related paychecks.
State officials are anxious to get shovels in the dirt and machines moving, but government bureaucracy may slow down the process.
The $1.3 billion in federal stimulus money approved for Florida to build new roads is purported to create or save 30,000 jobs. The federally-funded transportation projects are expected to be the first out of the stimulus to actually put unemployed workers back on the job.
