Gov. Rick Scott's rough poll ratings continue to slowly improve, with his disapproval rating inching down to 50 percent and his approval rating rising to 37 percent, according to a new Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday.
If anyone ever believed that the more conservative Bill Clinton really thought the more liberal Barack Obama was prepared to be president in 2008, let them wonder no longer.
Citing "ongoing compliance deficiencies," Gov. Rick Scott has put Workforce Central Florida on two weeks' probation and threatened to shut the agency down if it did not remove its top executives.
"In recent years, the leadership of WCF has engaged in a series of activities that require this unprecedented, but necessary, action. Ongoing fiscal and compliance deficiencies have caused continuing concern about WCF's internal controls and its management," Scott wrote in a letter to Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs.
The hiring of a convicted felon at the Florida Department of Revenue is just the tip of a bureaucratic iceberg rife with cronyism, sources inside the department say.
Sunshine State News revealed this week that Deon McCrimmon was hired by the department seven months after pleading guilty to a felony count of wire fraud in Georgia. The federal indictment said McCrimmon illicitly concealed an IRS back-tax bill of $139,169 and inflated her income when she applied for a home loan.
The states recently appointed director of the Office of Financial Regulation says his agencys primary goal is to build trust in an industry still recovering from the 2007-2010 financial crisis and high-profile Ponzi schemes that dipped deep into Florida.
OFR Director Tom Grady acknowledged that the Bernie Madoff scandal and others that have been uncovered in Florida in the past few years can never be stopped at the origin.
Pointing to tough economic times for consumers, the chairman of the Florida Public Service Commission cautioned Tuesday about being "overly aggressive" in adding renewable energy.
Art Graham told a House panel he thinks the state needs to move forward with renewable energy, which could include sources such as solar power and biomass, but that people do not want to pay higher utility bills now.
"It's a great thing,'' Graham said. "Florida needs to get there.But it's costly.''
