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.

Growing participation in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program is being accompanied by modest academic improvement among the state's lowest-performing students, according to a new study. And education reformers point to deeper long-term benefits.

"There may be positive effects on FTC Scholarship Program participants in terms of reading and mathematics test-score gains," reports Northwestern University researcher David Figlio.

Barring an unforeseen reversal in Republican Party fortunes, the 2013 Florida Senate will look a lot like the 2011 and 2012 models.

When President Mike Haridopolos turns the gavel over to president-designate Don Gaetz, the state Senate may still be the "most conservative Senate in Florida history."

That sobriquet, bestowed by Haridopolos as he assumed the presidency last session, fits both legislative leaders.

"You're going to see a very similar Senate. Their philosophies are the same," says Sen. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne.

A tax specialist at the Florida Department of Revenue is under internal investigation stemming from her 2004 conviction for "defrauding and obtaining money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses."

Deon McCrimmon was convicted in U.S. District Court in Georgia of concealing a $139,169 unpaid IRS bill and overstating her income when she applied for a home loan in Albany, Ga.

Less than seven months later, and while still on probation, McCrimmon landed a job at the Florida Department of Revenue on April 8, 2005.

Congress aims to slow down the Environmental Protection Agency this week with the expected passage of the TRAIN Act.

The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act would require the EPA to analyze the cumulative impacts of major regulations, while delaying two of the most expensive rules.