The Fine Print

Gov. Rick Scott's script for 2016

It's always been an open secret that Florida Gov. Rick Scott sticks to a script when he talks in public, especially when he occasionally answers questions from the press.

A reminder of that came recently when his office posted copies of what it calls "Driving Message" in response to a public records request by Tampa Bay Times reporter Steve Bousquet.

The information from October and November is essentially a rolling set of questions on topics/news of the day that includes the answer that Scott is supposed to be given when asked. The responses cover everything from campus carry gun legislation to what he thinks about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and why he's opposed to raising the minimum wage. ("Increasing the minimum wage will result in losing jobs.")

And the answers included in the documents are exactly what Scott has said about the various topics, whether it's a question about suspending school grades or the handling of Syrian refugees by federal government.

The talking points also give a small amount of insight about how Scott may handle issues in the near future.

The remarks, for instance, say he's not endorsing any GOP candidates for president "today" but they include praise for Trump despite the criticism aimed at the businessman from fellow GOP candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

"I think people in Washington are trying to figure out why Trump is doing so well, but the reality is he is saying what he thinks. He is not being politically correct. I think a lot of people find that refreshing," state Scott's talking points.

Coupled with other things he has said about Trump _ and the fact that some of his own key supporters/campaign people are now working for him _ it would be plausible for Scott to endorse him ahead of the March GOP primary in Florida. (Although Scott has generally avoided getting involved in primaries given his own bitter, divisive primary for governor back in 2010 when he ran against establishment-backed candidate Bill McCollum.)

The answers included in the document regarding a bill that would allow concealed weapon holders to bring their guns on university campuses suggests that the Scott administration may have some doubts about the legislation. ("I am not sure there is a silver bullet solution, but college should be a safe place students go to learn, not a place of violence.")

But the main question is whether Scott and his team will revise this script as they head into 2016 and a session that starts in less than two weeks.

His talking points on tax cuts, hospital transparency, the proposed deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and Enterprise Florida reforms don't fully explain Scott's logic. In other words, how exactly will Scott sell this?

Despite a contentious 2015 session that saw the GOP-controlled Legislature pare back, or ignore completely, many of his recommendations, Scott actually is pushing ahead with a more detailed agenda this upcoming session than he has during the last few years. And that creates plenty of potential flashpoints in the weeks and months ahead.

There's no doubt that his $1 billion tax cut package and his request of $250 million for business incentives are his top priorities as Scott makes a case to diversify the state's economy. He will make the argument in January - during a tour to emphasize job growth under his watch - that the state's economic recovery will not hold if more isn't done.

The problem for Scott and his team is that there is a wide divide in the House and Senate (which has been unable to agree on many top issues in the past year) on the right approach of so many of the items on Scott's 2016 checklist.

Gambling? It's not clear that there's enough votes in the Senate for the $3 billion deal proposed by Scott that would give craps and roulette to the Seminoles. But the House may not go along with the deal unless it includes a constitutional amendment that bars any future expansion. Senate President Andy Gardiner has said he's not sure there's enough votes in the Senate to pass such an amendment.

Business incentives? While the House and Senate may be willing to endorse Scott's "reforms" in regards to process, the idea of placing such a large amount of money in the governor's hands is viewed suspiciously by some House conservatives who consider incentives an intrusion into the marketplace.

Tax cuts? The amount is a hard goal to reach without making cuts elsewhere in the budget - which is something that legislators about to hit the campaign trail don't want hanging over their head. Another complication is that there is growing resistance to the reliance on increased local property taxes to help pay for school funding. House and Senate leaders say they like "tax cuts," but there is also divergence on whether those cuts should be more directed at individuals, not companies as Scott has largely proposed.

Hospital transparency? Scott's ongoing efforts to go after Florida's hospitals - including a price cap - includes some proposals that may strike some conservatives as intrusive government regulation not a free-market solution. House leaders have been pushing policies that they say will open up health care to more competition, while top Senate Republicans seem to have little interest in any of the ideas.

Scott, of course, has his veto pen as the ultimate bargaining tool as he deals with recalcitrant legislators.

The decision of Jesse Panuccio to resign from his job as the head of the Department of Economic Opportunity rather than confront a messy confirmation battle removed one potential point of leverage for the Florida Senate. But there are other agency heads whose adherence to Scott's agenda and seeming resistance to legislative instructions may make it difficult for them to survive what could be a messy session.

If the Legislature were in fact able to put together a budget quickly and present it to Scott before the end of the 60-day session, it would create a conundrum for the governor. He would be forced to act on legislative budget priorities within 7 days which would give lawmakers the ability to decide whether to approve some of Scott's top priorities based on how he handled the budget.

Another problem for Scott is that the consuming lobbying frenzy over the compact with the Seminole Tribe may distract legislators as they try to cobble together enough votes to pass something. (One possible solution is to have lawmakers pass the main compact, with the promise they will pass bills in 2017 to deal with other parts of the gambling industry.)

As all of this unfolds during the next two months, the question is whether Scott and his team will provide new answers, new insights and new arguments to counter the pushback that the governor is going to likely encounter.

Or will Scott stick to his oft-repeated line that he used time and time again where he will say that he expects the Legislature to "do the right thing" and vote exactly how he wants them to without explaining how, or why legislators should do that.

Maybe that will be the "driving message" that needs to be answered later in 2016.

Keep your phones in your desk and your doors open? A peek inside Jesse's world

It's been a while, but it's time for another bit of Inside the Tally bubble news...

A PEEK INSIDE JESSE'S WORLD....Jesse Panuccio, the Harvard trained lawyer in charge of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, has managed during his nearly three year stint to weather several storms including the highly troubled roll-out of the state's unemployment assistance online system.

Panuccio has been consistent at echoing Gov. Rick Scott's talking points about the economy as evidenced by his routine appearances at Cabinet meetings where he talks about the jobs picture in Florida. (This is something that was not done prior to Scott's arrival.)

But as a member of the Scott administration Panuccio is considered one of those who might be the most endangered.

Like other Scott appointees Panuccio needs a confirmation vote by the Florida Senate in 2016 in order to hang onto his job. Some of his most recent appearances before legislative committees have not gone smoothly, which has helped ramp up speculation about his future.

Lately however Panuccio has tried to change the agenda beyond criticism of the unemployment assistance system.

Instead he has maintained that the state needs to get aggressive cracking down on fraudsters who are using fake identities in order to lay claim to jobless benefits. He has written op-eds about the growing "crisis" of fraud and has asked state legislators for $3.5 million for a whole array of programs in his own agency to go after those seeking to rip off the unemployment benefits.

"What we are seeing in our estimation is an astounding amount of fraudulent claim activity,'' Panuccio testified to a Senate committee in early October.

When he's mentioned the fraud problem - which DEO estimates is as high as 12 percent of all claims - Panuccio has talked about criminal rings and organized conspiracies to obtain personal identifying information.

But apparently Panuccio's agency is also worried that its own employees could be thieves as well.

In March of this year DEO adopted a sweeping security policy entitled "Protocols for Protecting Personal Information." Download Policy1 11

The policy was basically enacted a couple of weeks before it was revealed that a Miami woman had been able to access personal information through the Department of Children and Families database.

The policy says that employees who work in the Bureau of Reemployment Assistance Program can't have a cellphone at their desk. They can have a phone in their desk or purse but they can't answer it if it's ringing. Other parts of the policy state employees can't use non-network printers or insert their phones into their work computers.

Apparently some DEO workers thought this new policy went too far, and was not family-friendly. One anonymous worker tried writing a letter this summer to Gov. Scott to complain.

"I can understand the no use of state phones for personal reason, however I have small children and family with heath issues. if I can't have my state phone I should be allowed to have my cell phone on my desk so that I can see if they call and I need to step outside and call them back,'' wrote the employee who said they worked in Tallahassee.

"I have been employed with the state for many years and have NEVER been treated this way," the letter goes on. "Moral(e) is pretty much GONE! If they don't trust us, they need to get rid of us."

The letter was kicked back to DEO's Inspector General who took no action because of the IG supports the department's enacted security policies.

But mandates and edicts at DEO are nothing new.

Shortly after Panuccio took in 2013 over he enacted a dress code for the department. Download Policy1 09

His dress code outlawed everything from jeans, flip-flops, even "athletic type jerseys" with the names of sports teams. The policy made it clear that the dress code was to be followed even on Fridays.

"Employees should always look neat and professional, in clean, pressed clothing,'' states the policy.

Recently another DEO employee contended that there was another policy in place at one of DEO's offices.

A report from Scott's own chief inspector general cited an employee who complained that all employees were required to keep their office doors open and that she was reprimanded because she violated the policy. For the record, a spokeswoman for the agency, Erin Gillespie maintained she's unaware of any open door policy.

BUDGET TRANSPARENCY MOVES AHEAD....During the spring House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Rep. Richard Corcoran put in place a formal process that required House members to answer questions about projects they wanted funded in the state budget.

That process is getting even more involved heading into 2016. Last week the House even had a webinar/training session to explain how it would work.

A memo from Corcoran explains that while the "technical process" has changed that the content of information is the same as before. "However, the timeliness of your submission will be a factor in making budget decisions since it my expectation that all budget issues need to be thoroughly vetted," Corcoran wrote.

One of the more interesting factors about the new system is that House members who want to make a budget request must do it online with a computer owned by the House. The online links used will automatically assign a number to the member who makes the request.

The big question then for the House will be this: Once the requests are received will all of them be placed online so members of the public can see them?

If that's done then the Legislature will have fully reinstated the "Community Budget Issue Request System" even if it has a different name. That system was eliminated during the Great Recession when legislators were cutting budgets, but it was never reinstated once the economy began to turn.

RECORDS SHOW THAT PARTY AFFILIATION WAS STRESSED IN APPOINTMENT OF ELECTIONS OFFICIAL...Late last summer a reporter with The Apalachicola Times asked for documents regarding a decision made by Gov. Scott to appoint Franklin County Commissioner Pinki Jackel as the new elections supervisor in the small coastal county. Scott had made the decision to appoint Jackel even though the outgoing supervisor Ida Cooper Elliott (who died from cancer earlier this month) had recommended that the governor tap her assistant supervisor Heather Riley for the job.

"I fully support and hope that Heather would be considered for appointment,'' wrote Elliott. "I have the utmost confidence in her and her abilities to run this office."

The governor's office waited two months before they handed over those records.

And what did they show?

That Jackel - and some of those boosting her appointment - stressed her Republican ties as one of the reasons Scott should pick her for the job of overseeing elections.

Jackel's own application for the job stated: "When elected in 2008, I became the only Republican in Franklin County since reconstruction. I was re-elected in 2012 with 67% of the vote. I remain the only elected Republican and have been a registered Republican since 2004 when I moved back to Florida. I have never changed my party affiliation."

Jackel put down the chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party as one of her references for the position. Ned Pooser, a GOP state committeeman, also wrote a glowing endorsement letter for her appointment that pointed out that the county party backed her.

"She is extremely bright, and a fierce advocate of the 'let's get to work ethic,' wrote Pooser. "The Franklin Republican Executive Committee unanimously endorses her appointment; and I echo that sentiment. The county will benefit by her appointment, as will our party."

The slow fading light of a Scott initiative

Sorry for the delay - time for another installment of Inside the Tallahassee bubble news

Three years ago this May Gov. Rick Scott unveiled an initiative that he said would help citizens hold their government accountable.

Project Sunburst as it was called was described as a way to increase access to public records held by the Scott administration - while at the same time helping cut down on the number of record requests constantly flowing in for emails from both the governor and his staff.

When it started the initiative included the emails of Scott and members of his leadership team (although noticeably absent were the emails of his budget chief and general counsel.)

And when asked about other records, such as correspondence and letters written by Scott, then-Chief of Staff Steve MacNamara promised that would be added as well.

Let's flash forward and see what's there now.

Letters? That never really got going. All that is on is the site are 11 letters written in June 2012.

Ok, so what about emails?

Well, there are more folders associated with former employees than people working there now.

There are four deputy chiefs of staff reporting to Melissa Sellers, Scott's chief of staff and campaign manager for his re-election. None of them have their emails included in Sunburst. Nor does Scott's current cabinet affairs director - an area that has been the source of consternation in recent months since the forced dismissal of Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey.

Emails going into an account for Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera appear to have stopped going into Sunburst this past January.

There is still traffic in Sellers account - but it mainly consists of her schedule and emails she receives. She appears to have adopted the same policy as her predecessor and refrains from using her state account to send anything out.

Sunburst does still show Scott's own email account although the great bulk of that account are emails received to his public account from citizens around the state. The site also does include the emails of Scott communications director Jackie Schutz although her account hasn't been updated since May 7.

Another legal battle brewing over taxpayer-helped campaigns

Former State Rep. Perry Thurston lost his bid last year to become the state's top legal affairs officer.

But Thurston is embarking on a legal challenge that could affect future statewide campaigns.

The unsuccessful Democratic candidate for attorney general and his attorney Mark Herron are asserting that the Department of State improperly denied his request last summer for matching funds.

To refresh everyone's memory: Matching funds are taxpayer money that is made available to statewide candidates based on certain eligibility criteria. Those who meet the criteria receive an initial two-for-one match for contributions from Florida residents followed by additional distributions at a one for one match.

The Legislature tried to repeal the program but voters turned down a proposed amendment to get rid of the money.

Thurston asserts he cleared the thresholds needed to get the matching funds including raising at least $100,000.

But in its filing with the Florida Elections Commission attorneys who work for Secretary of State Ken Detzner maintain that the documentation submitted by Thurston in August 2014 put him at slightly more than $99,000 - or below the threshold. They contend that the Thurston campaign did not question the omission of other documentation until after he has lost the Democratic primary to George Sheldon and by then it was too late because he was no longer a candidate.

"If individuals were permitted to submit supplementary documentation to establish the $100,000 threshold for eligibility at any time, even after being eliminated as a candidate, there would be no limiting principle to achieve finality,'' states the filing by then-department general counsel J. Andrew Atkinson.

Thurston appealed the finding to the commission but the panel last week voted against him.

Herron says his client plans to take the case to the 1st District Court of Appeal. He contends that this is an important case because the division used minor issues - the fact that a copy of the check was partially turned down and hid part of an address - to deny Thurston's submission. If the division had counted these checks then Thurston would have been eligible. The October submission was merely resubmitting the same information with new copies of the checks.

The amount of money that Thurston could be eligible for if he wins the case would not be unsubstantial. The division itself acknowledges that if Thurston had been crossed the initial threshold he would have been entitled to roughly $75,000.

In its filing division attorneys assert it is pointless to pay the money now because under law it would have be returned to the state's general revenue account. Herron disputes that as well.

Budget sleuthing, smoke and mirrors (Part 2)

So the public and press have a hard time figuring out sometimes where items stashed in the $70-billion plus state budget came from originally.

But there's one person who legislators make sure to know where items in the budget came from.

And that's Gov. Rick Scott.

For Scott's first three years in office he had his budget office led by the same man - Jerry McDaniel - who also helped draw up budgets for Gov. Charlie Crist when he was in charge.

Part of the annual budget process under McDaniel was to make sure that the governor's office had a fairly comprehensive list of where specific budget projects originated from - and just as importantly - who had an interest in making sure a project was spared a line-item veto.

This process isn't all that public, but you can see it play out in various public records (meaning it doesn't really get discovered until after the fact.)

Still you get a feel for how important certain projects are and who they are linked to when you go through emails and other documents.

And emails from May 2013 illustrate that clearly.

On May 6 - the Monday after the end of session Scott's legislative affairs office had already distributed a spreadsheet that contained a list of budget priorities associated with the various budget chairmen in the state Senate.

On May 7 - McDaniel holds a meeting where he asked Office of Planning and Budget staff to bring "whatever you have regarding budget priorities for the members of the Fl Legislature."

Later that day McDaniel emails his staff: "As you call to associate projects in the budget with members, please insure that they understand that you are not in search of priorities - just their particular interest in seeing projects occurring in the budget become law. Senior staff are calling separately for top 3 priorities."

That same day emails start to come in from legislative staff outlining what parts of the budget legislators are interested in.

Of course not everything was enshrined in an email.

On May 10 McDaniel emails top deputies in Scott's office with the subject line "Need."

Those emails simply included the names of several legislators including Sen Bill Galvano, Sen. John Legg, and Rep. Richard Corcoran.

Before Scott had finally acted on his line-item vetoes his staff compiled a nearly 400-page document that listed every individual spending item. And next to many lines were the name of a legislator.

$400,000 for a statewide charter school waiting list database? Rep. Erik Fresen

$2.5 million for a Florida State University Center for Reading Research pilot project? House Speaker Will Weatherford.

$1 million for a University of West Florida economic security report? Senate President Don Gaetz.

To be fair, there are many, many pages that list spending items without any legislators names on it.

But there are legislators associated with dozens and dozens of items, from funding for hospitals, mentoring programs, to money for Boys and Girls Clubs.

Gaetz, for example, backed $610,000 to help Bay County pay for indigent health care, while Weatherford was one of three legislators supporting a $250,000 appropriation for the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa.

But it's clear that sometimes asking the governor to spare an item doesn't help.

An aide to Rep. Mike LaRosa, R-St. Cloud, in a May 7 email highlights 6 items included in the budget for Osceola and Polk counties, including money for program for homeless veterans in Osceola County. All six are vetoed by Scott.

Yet Rep. Ken Roberson, R-Punta Gorda, managed to get his two projects spared, including $75,000 for a feasibility study to develop a research education aquarium in Charlotte County.

Some of the other legislators who also reached out in emails include Rep. Bill Hager, Rep. Dennis Baxley and Rep. Marti Coley.

Coley wrote a lengthy email to McDaniel where she defended several projects, including a $400,000 line-item for Liberty Hospital in Calhoun County where she argued the money was needed to help foster economic development in the rural Panhandle county.

From her email:

"Calhoun County is in my former district (Just a side note - I was born in this hospital). When I first came into office in 2005, I worked tirelessly to help keep this hospital open. The citizens rallied together and today it is a vital part of the community's economy and healthcare system. The upgrades would further help this community to continue to help themselves to attract economic development to the area. They are largely dependent on DOC (Department of Corrections) and this hospital for jobs and are diligently working to attract other industries to the area."

Scott, whose background includes running a for-profit hospital chain, vetoed the money. In his veto message, Scott said he killed the funding because it was going to pay for construction costs at the hospitaL

Just to note:

Of the 12 projects associated with Weatherford, Scott wound up vetoing five of them including money set aside for the Pasco County sheriff, a medical training and simulation lab for the University of Miami, a STEM Magnet Education Academy in Pasco County and the FSU reading pilot project.

Of the 18 projects associated with Gaetz, Scott vetoed 11 of them including $14 million for Gulf Coast State College, the $1 million for the UWF economic security report, $610,000 for indigent care coverage at the Bay County Health Department, $1 million for Building Homes for Heroes.

One small part of Rick Scott's legacy as governor

It didn't get a lot of ink last Friday.

But along with a school voucher bill and a school prayer bill Gov. Rick Scott also signed into law a piece of legislation that will likely become a small part of his legacy as governor.

Scott quietly signed HB 1305, the bill that arose out of last summer's disclosure that Scott's transition team had somehow lost emails that covered the period between Scott's election and the time he was sworn into office.

The bill now mandates that that the governor - as well as the three Cabinet members - must preserve and make public any documents or emails they create or send after Election Day but before they are sworn into office. Scott was a strong supporter of the legislation.

Scott's own transition period back in late 2010 was a time of tremendous activity because the governor's top advisers started their recruitment of top agency positions and began assembling the initial parts of the governor's agenda.

The emails and documents that have been been made available show everything from the fact that themes in the governor's inaugural speech was poll-tested to the fact that some people sought out by the Scott administration turned down job offers. Those same documents show that inklings of ideas never enacted - including a proposal to put together a website that would list how business friendly some local communities were.

But last August it was first reported by The St. Petersburg Times that some emails were apparently missing. Scott's transition team members had tried to find the emails in the wake of public records requests, but they were unable to guarantee that all of them were available.

The Associated Press reported that one batch of emails that did surface late last summer showed that "former Gov. Jeb Bush offered that state's incoming governor a long list of "lessons learned through trial and error" that touched on everything from how to deal with those guarding his safety to telling him it was OK to veto stupid bills." Bush had also urged Scott to push for universal private school vouchers, to eliminate state money for some university programs and save money by releasing elderly prisoners.

Another set of Bush emails that was discovered months after the transition revealed that the former governor disagreed with a decision by the incoming Scott administration to fire the mother of an Army soldier who had just been killed in Afghanistan as well as others who worked in the governor’s office.

Amid the flap over the lost emails, Scott ordered an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into why the emails were lost and whether any were retrievable. Nearly eight months later that investigation has still not been wrapped up.

While the investigation has not been concluded, some information about what happened has emerged, including that emails from both an iPad and smartphone used by the governor were lost.

Transition records are generally understood to be public records, but a review of transition records by The Associated Press "showed a wide disparity in how the records – including emails – by both the governor’s office and the offices of top Cabinet officials are collected and stored. Some records are turned over to state archives, but others for example, have wound up in the basement of Capitol offices."

That review also showed that while the Scott transition team used a private company to handle its email former Gov. Charlie Crist’s transition team used state computers to handle its email accounts. But it also appeared some members of the Crist team were never asked to turn over any emails from their personal email accounts.

The new measure that Scott signed into law states that in the future statewide elected officials must keep their emails - and turn them over when they are sworn into office.

Gov. Rick Scott "freaking emails" and his "freaking phone"

In the last few weeks, it has been disclosed that transition related emails for Gov. Rick Scott and his team may have been lost.

Then it was discovered that emails that had been on Scott's iPad were accidentally deleted.

It also turns out that emails on Scott's Blackberry also may have been lost, although some were recovered.

Newly-released records show that Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents brought in to help after the iPad incident back in April decided to see if Scott's Blackberry still had the emails on them.

The only problem is that the Blackberry was linked to the transition email account that got shut down in late January.

An April 29 email from an agent in FDLE's digital evidence section says that 87 pages of content was recovered off the Blackberry but there was no way to know for sure whether or not all the emails were recovered.

"Everyone involved acted with extreme professionalism and due diligence under non-ideal circumstances," wrote Jennifer Roeder. "I just wish that freaking emails were still on freaking phone."

Here's the rest of the story.