Michael Moline
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation is having trouble retaining actuaries, aides to Gov. Rick Scott learned Thursday, as a raft of state agencies presented their budget requests for the next fiscal year.
The office is asking for $31.6 million for FY 16-17, including $488,651 to boost its actuarial firepower, agency budget director Richard Fox said. This would pay for a new analyst in its property and casualty insurance actuary unit, and reclassify eight staff actuaries as senior analysts in that and the life and health unit.
Additional promotions would bring the total to around $1.2 million, but the office would save in the long run by reducing a high turnover, Fox said.
“We’re trying to get these people promoted to senior actuary so they can remain with the department and create a career path,” he said, and “hopefully reduce the costs of training for these positions.”
Saving money would be a good thing. The requests come at a time when the state’s general revenue fund is expected to run on razor-thin margins next year and into the red in subsequent years.
The public hearing “gives the public an opportunity if they want to come and ask questions,” said Laurie Grasel, a senior budget aide to the governor. The agencies will make similar presentations to Florida House and Senate leaders.
The Florida Fiscal Portal contains links to the agency budget requests.
The Department of Financial Services wants $42.5 million to continue work on its financial and cash management systems upgrade. The agency seeks $325.8 million overall, a 21 percent increase over existing spending.
One key item for the Division of Hotels and Restaurants, part of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, was $141,000 to boost training for alcohol and tobacco enforcement agents. The department’s request totaled $152.9 million.
The Florida Lottery wants $761,000 to create a sales incentives program that agency budget director Travis Ervin said would generate revenue, and $837,000 to “streamline primary business functions.”
The Department of Revenue’s $552.6 million budget request includes $1.3 million in a federal grant that will allow its child support program to install technology to make sure people seeking information through its telephone and web chat systems are who they say they are.
The Agency for State Technology — state government’s IT department, in other words — hopes to spend $3 million to store more data on the cloud, and $343,000 to study the feasibility of leasing instead of buying desktop computers for state workers.
In other legislative budget requests, the Department of Corrections is asking for $147.3 million for increased staffing, to replace old buildings, and for new vehicles, including transport vans.
The Department of Juvenile Justice has a request in for $577.9 million, with no additional new full-time employees. That includes $5.3 million in funding for intervention programs.
The Department of Law Enforcement seeks $20.9 million, a 7 percent increase from the current year.
Commissioner Rick Swearingen has said he wants 46 new positions to create counterterrorism squads across the state.
Swearingen also wants to increase the base pay for FDLE agents from $46,000 a year to $56,000, he said in September.
