Phil Ammann
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers:
Tampa Bay Times — Florida’s rotten record on helping jobless
A report this month cements Florida’s standing as the worst provider of unemployment insurance in the nation. The state’s shameless attempt to save money at the expense of one of its most vulnerable populations is responsible for the dubious distinction. The Legislature should reverse the onerous eligibility requirements it created for qualified applicants for jobless benefits and force state officials to do right by the unemployed.
The National Employment Law Project released a report showing that Florida provided jobless benefits to a paltry 11 percent of eligible Floridans in 2015. The state’s percentage of unemployed who qualify for and receive unemployment benefits was the lowest in the country. The ranking follows a report from June 2014 to June 2015 in which Florida provided help to 12 percent of eligible residents.
The state’s ridiculously low rate is largely a result of a systemic effort to cull the rolls of people who receive unemployment insurance. A 2011 state law created a series of restrictive eligibility rules designed to make it more difficult to receive unemployment benefits. For example, job seekers are required to provide weekly documentation to prove that they are looking for work. That resulted in large numbers of people being disqualified for unemployment benefits. That shouldn’t be a point of pride but a signal that something is drastically wrong with the qualification procedure.
Four of the five lowest-ranking states, including South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, also have adopted significant cuts to benefits. With the exception of North Carolina, each of the states adjusts its available weeks of benefits on a sliding scale based on the unemployment rate. Florida has cut the maximum length of unemployment benefits to 12 weeks, less than half the national average in 2015.
Bradenton Herald — Don’t repeal red-light camera law, for safety’s sake
Proponents of red-light cameras stationed at busy intersections should be up in arms over legislative action to repeal the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act. This week, Melissa Wandall addressed a House committee considering repeal.
Wandall’s husband was killed in 2003 in a collision with a vehicle running a red light here in Manatee County, and she worked tirelessly for years for passage of a bill allowing red-light cameras. The argument that cameras change driving behavior and save lives fell on deaf ears as a majority of committee members agreed with the counter points — that cities and counties install cameras to generate revenue from the fines and not as a safety measure. The other main point is the claim the devices don’t prevent accidents.
The sponsor of the House bill, Rep. Frank Artiles, R-Miami, called the cameras a “back-door tax” since the fine for running a red light is $158.
He’s following a popular but tiresome doctrine: If you want to kill something you don’t like, label it a “tax.” By Artiles’ reasoning, every traffic ticket is a “back-door tax” and every one should be repealed. Red-light running is against the law just like speeding and all the other moving violations. All incur fines. The tax argument is a smokescreen to spike the 2010 law.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal — Keep doctor’s office in Oak Hill
Oak Hill has one doctor — one. There are doctors in Edgewater, but that’s a 40-minute bus ride away — assuming an appointment can be scheduled to work with Votran’s two daytime trips to Oak Hill. Getting to an office in Daytona Beach or DeLand can be even more challenging.
That’s what makes recent correspondence from Volusia County so distressing. It wants to sell the building that houses the Oak Hill Medical Clinic, and it served Dr. John Byrne notice that he’s on a month-to-month lease until then.
Byrne told The News-Journal’s Michael Finch II that he believes the building was donated to the county by the Bert Fish Foundation, with the stipulation that it be used as a medical facility. Other clinics on foundation-donated land do carry that proviso. But nobody seems to be able to find the relevant paperwork for the Oak Hill facility.
However, the back-and-forth about deed restrictions and legal language misses the point. The county shouldn’t be looking to evict Oak Hill’s only doctor — if anything, it should be trying to recruit more physicians to the area to cover the gap when Byrne, who is 67, decides to retire.
The Florida Times-Union — Change is difficult but necessary for the Duval schools
The top priority in life? Simple. It’s survival.
For the Duval County school system, the top priority of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti is to stem the increasing departure of students from the public schools.
Charters are the most recent cause of the loss of students from the traditional public schools, though charters technically are public schools.
Duval County parents have a historic reputation for sending their students to private schools or leaving the county for the more fortunate environs of suburban counties.
Even in the core city, parents are finding the means to send their children away from their neighborhood schools.
Florida Today – Fracking could be a freaking disaster
The oil fracking bill sailed through the Florida House but is meeting some resistance in the Senate. Let’s hope senators like Charlie Dean, Anitere Flores and Tom Lee continue to oppose putting Floridians’ health and safety at risk.
Fracking or fracturing is the process of drilling and then pumping water and chemicals into wells at great depths and pressures to release oil and gas from rock formations.
It is water-intensive, with millions of gallons of water needed for a single well. Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins such as lead, uranium, mercury, methanol, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde.
OK, let’s break down the fracking bill (SB 318).
The state is telling local governments, “You are not allowed to ban fracking or to regulate it — that is now solely up to us.”
The Gainesville Sun – Health-care cuts target children
Does the state government care enough about what happens to Florida’s poor, sick and disabled children?
Based on the available evidence, the answer is no.
About 9.6 percent of children in Florida lacked health insurance in 2014, according to a study released last week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That’s the fifth-highest rate of uninsured kids for any state — an estimated 413,000 children.
And those numbers are down significantly from 2013, when Florida’s rate was 11.7 percent. The study’s authors credited that drop to the Affordable Care Act, which began generating low-cost coverage in 2014.
Children of families that purchased policies through the ACA benefited from that coverage, plus the federal law’s outreach efforts provided poor families with information on state-run insurance programs for kids. I a will be a in an
The Lakeland Ledger — What’s an election without voters, or opponents?
It’s unlikely that Ed Bowlin of Lake Wales, Pastor Mickey Carter of Haines City and Brandi Dunn of Lakeland know each other. But they have something in common. All three figured prominently in changing, or potentially changing, an important public policy in their respective city within recent months.
Bowlin last year waged a battle against the $150-per-home fire fee that the Lake Wales City Commission enacted last year. That fight continues. Bowlin is tussling with city officials about a proposed ballot measure to repeal the fee, and apparently seeking a direct policy role, is a City Commission candidate there. Carter in December launched an effort to persuade the Haines City City Commission to excuse churches from the city’s stormwater-treatment fee. Commissioners recently approved that. And late last year Dunn’s advocacy convinced the Lakeland City Commission to end its ban on Sunday alcohol sales.
These activists demonstrate that if you want change, you cannot stay on the bench. You must get involved. But they have made a larger point: their accomplishments, or potential accomplishments in Bowlin’s case, highlight that with all the layers of government we Americans must answer to, everyday folks can have the most impact at City Hall.
Which is why it is disappointing that so many upcoming municipal elections around Polk County have already been decided.
Miami Herald — New focus: ethics, jobs and reform
First, applaud Florida Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, long and loud. His refusal to place needless and dangerous gun legislation before the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, saved lawmakers a lot of time and, likely saved many Floridians, prospectively, their lives.
Open-carry? Not happening. Guns on campus? Nope. Guns in airport terminals, for goodness sake? Gone. While the Florida House was gung-ho for these bills, Sen. Diaz de la Portilla was right to assume that nothing good could come from them. And he’s a gun owner. More important, he is a responsible lawmaker who exercised common sense — and likely let some nervous colleagues, cowed by the NRA, off the hook.
With guns off the table, and the legislative session galloping toward its March 11 conclusion, lawmakers need to focus on several other issues, and bring the same common sense that Sen. Diaz de la Portilla displayed:
▪ There is encouraging bipartisan support for criminal-justice reform, as lawmakers realize that putting nonviolent or mentally ill offenders behind bars for years, as has been done for decades, is not the way to rebuild lives or make communities safer. There are several bills that warrant support, including those that would make it easier for juveniles to clear their criminal records, which too often prevent them from finding employment as adults; allow some drug-possession offenders to receive sanctions other than a prison sentence; and let police officers issue citations for certain offenses, rather than hauling a person to jail. House Bill 439 and Senate Bill 604 would expand the use of mental-health courts, authorize pretrial mental-health programs for juvenile offenders, broaden intervention programs and focus on getting military veterans into treatment. Prison is the worst place to house mentally ill offenders — it’s too late to ask Darren Rainey. These initiatives introduce the kind of smart justice missing from the criminal-justice system.
Orlando Sentinel — Seize chance to end long budget clash
For years, counties in Florida have been at war with state leaders in the Capitol and the courts over how to divide juvenile justice costs. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are in dispute.
Finally, a truce is in sight. A Senate bill, SB 1322, that would split the costs 50-50 is heading toward passage in that chamber with bipartisan support. But the bill could die unless its House counterpart, HB 1279, gets a hearing. And its last chance could come Tuesday in a House subcommittee chaired by a Central Florida lawmaker, Republican Larry Metz of Yalaha.
SB 1322 would replace the current formula requiring counties to pay 57 percent of the costs of detaining youthful offenders, with the state Department of Juvenile Justice paying the other 43 percent. If the bill passes, DJJ would owe almost $12 million more next year. If Metz and other House members are worried about this knick in the state’s $80 billion budget, they need to keep in mind that things could turn out a lot worse.
Under a previous formula, the state charged counties 75 percent of juvenile justice costs. But a district court in 2013 ruled that counties should only have been picking up about a third of the tab. Based on that ruling, 23 counties have been in court seeking tens of millions of dollars in reimbursements. Depending on who does the math, the accumulated overcharges to the counties range between $100 million and $200 million.
Ocala StarBanner —Youth Fair is a community jewel
It’s time again for the Southeastern Youth Fair, and that means it’s time once again to acknowledge one of Ocala/Marion County most glittering community jewels.
More than 1,000 exhibitors once again will participate at the Youth Fair, competing in everything from livestock judging to homemaking competitions to dog, chicken and rabbit shows. Of course, the two highlights of the Youth Fair, which starts today and runs through next Saturday, are Tuesday’s steer sale and next Saturday’s hog sale.
We never tire of visiting the Youth Fair or sharing with our readers what a remarkable community event it is. For each of the young participants, it is the culmination a year’s worth of nurturing, record-keeping, bookkeeping and marketing by these young people, who learn untold life lessons in preparation for being Ocala/Marion County’s next generation of leaders.
This year, however, will be marked with a tinge of sadness. The 2016 edition of the Southeastern — which started in 1940 and was converted into a youth-only affair in 1975 — is dedicated to Tim Townley, who died last year after a lengthy battle with cancer. Townley was not just a longtime fair booster and supporter, but for at least the past five years he was the biggest buyer at the annual steer show, the fair’s showcase event. His presence will be missed, for sure.
Pensacola News-Journal — Shortage of highly skilled workers in area
In addition to the standard unemployment rate, which essentially measures the success in finding a job for those that are actively seeking one, there are other methods that attempt to measure the quality of the jobs that are available and how well they match the workforce’s skills. When laborers have difficulty finding the type of job that utilizes their highest skills or when they cannot work the number of hours that they would like to, these workers are considered underemployed.
The most common definition of an underemployed worker is someone who is currently working a job that has a skill set that is below that of the worker’s own. For example, someone with a college degree in computer programming working in a grocery store as a clerk would be considered underemployed.
Chmura Economics & Analytics, a research and consulting firm based in Richmond, Va., has calculated this underemployment rate by comparing underemployment in the states against a national average.
Because this is a comparison to a single national average, they note that what appears to be underemployment in some cases may reflect higher standards for occupations in certain regions. For example, an occupation usually held by a person with a bachelor’s degree in one metropolitan area may typically be held by someone with a master’s degree in another metropolitan area.
The Palm Beach Post —Add diverse voices to CJC to help address justice issues
Contrary to the defenders of the status quo on the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission, County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor made eminent good sense when she called for a clergy representative on the CJC. But why stop there?
While almost everyone on the CJC seems happy with the current make up of the panel, Taylor, one of only three African-American CJC members, has spotlighted key problems. They start with the fact that for 30 years taxpayers have financed the now nearly million-dollar CJC, which functions like a county department though the private Economic Council of Palm Beach County Inc. appoints most of its members.
Last week, the County Commission provisionally voted to reduce the Economic Council-appointed members by two, to 10. The council’s all-white officers are hardly representative of the overall community, however; a look at the overall membership indicates there is no community representative per se.
Moreover, half the private-sector members, including the chairman and vice chairman, are Economic Council members. The others all have business interests and ties that would have them tend to avoid the controversial issues roiling the community around race and bias and overly aggressive policing.
The Panama City News-Herald —Justice Antonin Scalia, a man in full
It was a great blow to freedom and to the Constitution when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly. I predict that, in a closely watched and contentious decision, the Supremes vote 5-3 to buy flowers for his funeral.
I was fortunate to meet Scalia on a few occasions. Once I brought a parking ticket and asked if he could look into for me. He said he would have, but he had jury duty that day. No one laughed harder and took himself less seriously. Scalia was likable, authentic, approachable, brilliant and intellectually honest.
Scalia, the justice most hated by the Left, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed 98-0 by the Senate in 1986. Can you imagine that today?
There have been two important rulings in recent years by the court. One was the same-sex marriage decision, in which the court was asked to decide if defining same-sex marriage is a state’s right, or whether marriage would remain traditionally defined only as the union of two resentful and entrapped people who eventually end up wearing sweatpants to watch “Wheel of Fortune” every night.
South Florida Sun Sentinel – Needle swap a rare sign of health leadership
Thanks to a couple of South Florida legislators, we’re seeing new leadership in the battle against HIV/AIDS in Florida. For unfortunately, at a statewide level, leadership is lacking.
Over the last few years, Florida has seen a spike in HIV cases and now leads the nation in new infections. During this same time the Florida Department of Health, the lead agency in protecting the public health, has suffered significant cuts. Since 2012, the agency has eliminated 3,000 jobs, and Gov. Rick Scott’s latest budget proposes the loss of another 718.
The result?
There’s been a significant drop in services to youngsters with chronic conditions, who previously were enrolled in the Children’s Medical Services program.
For a variety of public health concerns, county health departments now see 200,000 fewer patients than they did in 2012.
And the spread of HIV has grown at an alarming rate — from 5,377 new cases in 2013, to 6,147 in 2014, to 6,240 through last November.
The Tallahassee Democrat – House bill opposing refugees gaining momentum
The fallout from the horrific Paris shootings continues to reverberate around the world — and Florida. In the aftermath, reportedly 31 governors — almost all Republicans, including Gov. Rick Scott — expressed varying degrees of opposition to resettling Syrian refugees in their respective states. More recently, the Florida Legislature weighed in.
A bill entitled “An Act Relating to Prevention of Acts of War” (HB 1095) would confer immigration and refugee resettlement authority to the governor and attorney general, empower FDLE to conduct background screenings, and notes the governor’s police powers and capacity to use military force to prevent the entry or resettlement into Florida of “restricted persons” – immigrants or refugees coming from countries where “invaders” or “prospective invaders” of the United States are present.
Though the bill passed in its two initial committee stops, it’s fundamentally flawed.
Simply put, a state legislature can’t confer authority it doesn’t have. Immigration law and refugee resettlement are exclusively within the ambit of the federal government. This bill would result in litigation and related costs to Florida taxpayers — a legal battle the state would be highly unlikely to win.
The Tampa Tribune — Sanctioning drug use
Tampa City Council is playing with fire with a plan to decriminalize marijuana use.
Don’t be surprised if local drug abuse explodes if the council approves the measure to issue only civil citations for possession of 20 grams or less of pot
Passage of the ordinance seems assured. The council voted 6-0 Thursday to hold an initial public hearing March 3 on the measure, which would go into effect after a second public hearing. Only Councilman Charlie Miranda seems skeptical.
The move, undoubtedly, would be popular. And it’s true, current law is too harsh. As the Tribune’s Christopher O’Donnell reports, the offense is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison or probation, and a $1,000 fine. Offenders also can lose their driver’s license for two years, affecting their job prospects.
And as City Councilman Harry Cohen, an ordinance supporter, points out, going to court can cost thousands of dollars for attorneys, court fees and such. No one wants to see someone saddled with a criminal record and lose their job for a youthful indiscretion.
