Corrections Scandal Reflects Privatization Problem; Not Enough Free Market in Insurance Woes?

Florida Policy News, July 10, 2006 

Crosby "A Product of the System"

The last time Jeb Bush and Jimmy Crosby shared the spotlight, the governor and his corrections secretary celebrated the power of faith behind prison walls.  (Stigma of prison scandal could stretch past Crosby, St. Petersburg Times)

On a crisp fall morning at a prison in rural Wakulla County that emphasizes religion and character, both men could ignore the tentacles of a widening criminal probe of Florida's prisons. Crosby, as shrewd a politician as the prison bureaucracy has ever produced, praised his boss' vision, and Bush returned the compliment.

"I'm thankful for the leadership of the Department of Corrections," Bush told the crowd on the day before Thanksgiving last year.

Now, in the twilight of Bush's tenure as governor, Crosby's admission that he accepted kickbacks from a vendor who ran cash prison canteen services adds a stigma of scandal to the administration and is likely to put the former prison boss behind bars.

The lingering question is whether Bush had too much faith in Crosby for too long, and it's a question that might arise if Bush ever seeks national office.  Bush demanded Crosby's resignation Feb. 10, a decision he coordinated with state and federal authorities.  "As the details come out, it'll be clear that it was the appropriate thing to do," the governor said at the time.

By then Crosby had been splitting kickbacks for more than a year with his friend and protege, regional prison boss Allen "A.C." Clark, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville on Wednesday.  The payments grew from $1,000 to $12,000 a month, according to court documents, and reached $130,000 before the illicit cash flow to Crosby ended in August of last year.

What investigators told Bush and when is still not known. But the governor remained publicly loyal to Crosby throughout 2005, even as revelations of steroid abuse, theft of property, no-show employees and a drunken brawl at an employee softball tournament rocked the nation's third-largest prison system.

"Don't let the 'blanks' get you down," Bush told Crosby in one widely quoted meeting last fall, encouraging him to ignore mounting criticism of his leadership.

Agents began seizing cars and other property from homes of corrections employees. Three items were taken from Crosby's home. On Sept. 26, a reporter asked about "steroid issues" in the agency.

"That's like, three years ago," Bush replied.  "Are you confident that the DOC is being properly run?" Bush was asked.

"I am. I am," Bush said, "and if there are any particular issues that people become aware of, they'll act on them. ... Maybe you guys get the FBI investigation fact sheets that are sent out on a daily basis. We don't get those."

When the sordid details of the FBI's investigation became public Wednesday, Bush was vacationing at his parents' vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. A former aide said Crosby's downfall was a shattering blow to a governor, who had required executive branch employees to take a class in ethics.

"To say the governor was gravely disappointed would probably be a huge understatement," said Cory Tilley, a former deputy chief of staff for Bush. "It's the reason people are cynical about government."

Bush appointed Crosby to run the prison system on the eve of the governor's second inauguration in 2003. In announcing the pick, Bush highlighted Crosby's "experience and knowledge of the system."

It was a logical choice, in one sense. Crosby replaced the icy and aloof Michael Moore, an outsider who had run prisons in Texas and South Carolina and was unpopular through the Florida prison bureaucracy.

"Jimmy" Crosby, as Bush called him, was, for better or worse, a product of the system he was hired to run. Bald, stockily built and engaging, he seemed equally at ease at a fish fry or in the halls of the Capitol.

He was a University of Florida Gator with a journalism degree. He took an intake officer's job and made his way up to become warden of Florida State Prison and held almost every job in the ranks except corrections officer. He lived in Raiford, home to one of the three huge prisons that make up what is known as the "Iron Triangle."

He was a darling of the corrections officers' union, the politically influential Police Benevolent Association.  Crosby's appointment was wildly popular with the corrections constituency, and with politicians, too. Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, who represents thousands of prison employees, described Crosby's selection in 2003 as "a dream come true," according to the Bradford County Telegraph.

Smith, a former state attorney who is a candidate for governor, recalled that morale was at rock bottom before Crosby arrived in 2003.  "I kept thinking this would be great for morale, and for a while it was," Smith said Thursday. "To find out that the boss was getting kickbacks - it's got to be heartbreaking."

But if the selection of Crosby reassured the rank-and-file, it carried red flags as well.  Crosby got the job despite having been warden of Florida State Prison in 1999 when inmate Frank Valdes died in his death row cell after a beating. An investigation found no evidence Crosby was involved, and several guards were acquitted of criminal charges.

He aggressively played politics. He donated money to statewide candidates, was a delegate at the 2000 Republican National Convention and organized rallies for Bush in the governor's 2002 re-election, giving his appointment the air of a patronage plum.

"He never should have appointed the guy in the first place," said Ron McAndrew , who preceded Crosby as warden of Florida State Prison and has been one of Crosby's toughest critics.

Said Bush's spokesman, Alia Faraj: "It's unfortunate that the actions of a few detract from the good work of the majority."

McAndrew, a prison consultant who lives in Dunnellon, said he e-mailed Bush "seven pages of shortcomings" about Crosby in 2003 but all he got was a phone conversation with a member of Bush's transition team, Mike Hanna, who later became Crosby's chief of staff.  McAndrew, who still talks to prison employees, said reaction to the Crosby revelations was "jubilation," a sentiment largely shared by Crosby's replacement, James McDonough.

"Did rot enter into the system? Yes. Are we purging it out? Yes," McDonough said. "Are we ashamed of what they did? Yes."

►  While former Department of Corrections Secretary James V. Crosby may be the biggest casualty yet of an outsourcing effort gone awry within the agency, his isn't the first problem DOC has faced with privatization.  (PrivatizationÕs perils plague the DOC, Gainesville Sun)

Since 2000, there has been nearly constant controversy over agency contracts the agency has entered into, ranging from problems with food services to the abrupt end of a contract to split and distribute prescription drugs to inmates. And the head of a now-defunct agency that oversaw the operation of private prisons was sent to federal prison earlier this year.

Crosby and former DOC Region I director Allen Clark admitted this week to federal charges of taking illegal kickbacks from a company performing subcontracted work for Keefe Commissary Network, the company that won a no-bid contract in 2003 from Crosby to sell items to inmates and their families.

Current DOC Secretary James McDonough has re-bid the Keefe contract, and barred the subcontractor - Gainesville-based American Institutional Services - from any future DOC work.

Previously, McDonough ended contracts that outsourced the distribution and splitting of prescription drugs for inmates after lawmakers howled at audits that showed TYA Pharmaceuticals lacked oversight and accounting for the process.  And McDonough has also revised contracts with private companies to save inmates and their families money on long distance phone calls and items sold in prison canteens.

Still, he said the problem is not with the concept of privatization, but with the previous lack of DOC oversight.  "We have really scrutinized the contract system," said McDonough, who Gov. Jeb Bush appointed to replace Crosby in February. "I think outsourcing is a fine idea but outsourcing doesn't relieve people like myself from the responsibility to scrutinize. You've got to make sure the public is served."

Democrats have long harped on the perils of privatization. Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, a gubernatorial candidate, said outsourcing of construction makes sense, "but operationally, I believed then and now more than ever, we need to be in control."  If elected, Smith said, "we're going to look hard at reversing this trend of privatization. Public employees absolutely can do everything that private employees can do as long as we tell them what we expect, hold them accountable and show them that we'll back them up."

Smith's opponent in the Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, said the state needs to audit, and limit, privatization efforts. While a member of the Florida House in 1989, Davis voted - in a 100-3 vote - for a bill that would require privatization of prisons.  But Davis spokesman Josh Earnest said Smith, as vice chairman of the Senate Justice Appropriations Committee, had more oversight of the privatization efforts in recent years.  "The issue in this race is not what happened 17 years ago, it's what's been happening in the Department of Corrections while Smith was vice chairman of that committee."

Gov. Jeb Bush, an ardent privatization supporter, has been less excited about the wholesale creation of privately-run prisons, saying public safety should be directly run by government.

During Bush's tenure, the agency and related offices have seen other problems.  Earlier this year, the former head of the now-defunct Correctional Privatization Commission pled guilty to charges of stealing more than $200,000.  An audit last year showed the state overpaid private prison operators nearly $13 million to pay for, among other things, jobs that were unfilled.

The decision to allow Aramark to provide meals to prisoners in 2001 led to state fines and concern among DOC officers that the low-quality meals left inmates surly and more prone to problems.

The executive director of the state's largest correctional officers union, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, said the charges against Crosby might tighten the privatization efforts.  "I think it's the concern the Legislature has had and rightfully so," said David Murrell. "It's been loosey-goosey."

But McDonough has not ignored the issue. He said he's reviewed the nearly 900 different contracts the agency has for services and products and is committed to making sure all contracts are in the state's best interest.

Asked if the federal charges related to Crosby meant increased oversight, McDonough said, "My vendors have been undergoing scrutiny since on or about Feb. 10. If they get any more I think they'll scream."

►  The man who was in charge of Florida's prison system may end up behind bars, but a criminal conviction alone won't eliminate the culture of corruption James Crosby Jr. left behind.  (Culture of corruption, St. Petersburg Times editorial)  With 21 former corrections employees prosecuted, that will require that federal and state investigators continue their aggressive investigation and that the next governor take advantage of their work to start clean.

Crosby was picked more than three years ago to replace a corrections secretary, Michael W. Moore, who had bungled privatization and endured charges of racism. But investigators say he began feathering his own nest within months of appointment, helping steer part of a prison concession contract to a Gainesville buddy who in turn gave him 40 percent of the take.

Gov. Jeb Bush fired Crosby in February and said Wednesday he is "disappointed by this violation of the public's trust." But Bush and state lawmakers seemed all too willing to brush aside the stories that accumulated during Crosby's tenure.

Upon his appointment, Crosby was given a pass for his role as Florida State Prison warden when inmate Frank Valdez was beaten to death. When Crosby acknowledged dining in Manhattan with executives seeking prison contracts and allowing lobbyists to book his tickets for concerts and ball games in Tallahassee, the governor didn't bat an eye. When investigators uncovered guards selling steroids, a phantom employee and items that were disappearing from prisons, the governor offered little reaction. After investigators took a metal rack, leaf blower and ladder from Crosby's home, Bush called him "a good person, a good leader" and said he told him "don't let the 'blanks' get you down."

The truth is that Florida's prison system, a $2-billion-a-year enterprise, has long suffered from political neglect. So long as inmates don't escape or die under mysterious circumstances, lawmakers and governors tend to look the other way. When they do take an interest, they find it difficult to bring change to a system with its own ruling families and power bases. Meanwhile, prisons are staffed by people who are poorly paid, overworked and face daily danger and abuse.

What Crosby's admissions have done is reveal how rotten the core had become. The indictments have not likely ended, but they are indeed sending one necessary message about the law to people who are sworn to uphold it. Jim McDonough, the retired Army colonel who took over for Crosby, is sending another. Since Bush appointed him in February, 40 employees have been fired, demoted or have resigned. McDonough is also reviewing contracts signed by Crosby.

The prison system is being scrubbed in ways that should be helpful to the next governor, who will take office in January. But he will find there is no simple answer to keeping this massive system clean and on the right track.

Moore demonstrated bringing in an outsider isn't always the solution. Crosby grew up in Bradford County, the heart of prison country, and lived the culture and knew the politics. He was mayor of Starke and campaigned for George and Jeb Bush. He was affable, a talker, and, as recently as last fall, he deflected criticism with a familiar swagger.

"No one has ever been able to write anything bad that I've done," he told the Times. "What they can't say is 'Jimmy Crosby stole this or Jimmy Crosby beat this inmate or Jimmy Crosby violated this (policy).' "

Thanks to federal and state investigators, it is now clear Crosby stole and Crosby lied. This is an opportunity to fundamentally change the culture of a bureaucracy that needed a good scrubbing. Let the prison-cleaning continue.

►  It's bad enough for any government official to be corrupt.  (Betrayal at its worst, Orlando Sentinel editorial)  But it always seems worse when it's law enforcement. That's one reason a guilty plea by former Florida prison chief James Crosby is so disturbingÉ.

This is just one egregious example of a prison system out of control. State investigators also have charged eight others in connection with stealing recycling material from the agency or using inmate labor for personal projects.

Indeed, since a new prison chief was named in February, 40 prison employees have been fired, resigned or been demoted. That's quite a housecleaning, but obviously a needed one.

For his part, Mr. Crosby says he apologizes to his family, to the governor and to the Department of Corrections.

Law-abiding public officials also are owed an apology. They always take a hit when the public trust is betrayed by one of their own. But mostly it is the citizens of Florida who are owed an apology for having the person they trusted to run the prison headed for one.

 

►  The rat's nest of corruption at the state Department of Corrections will cast a shadow over Gov. Jeb Bush's legacy, and not just because his former prisons chief and a colleague this week admitted taking more than $135,000 in kickbacks.  (Corrections Scandal Another Case of Lax Oversight in Outsourcing, Tampa Tribune editorial)

Anyone can make a hiring mistake, and most people felt Bush made a good call in promoting James Crosby, then a popular corrections employee, to head the agency in 2003.

What's more troubling than the governor's bad hire is the seeming lack of oversight over prisons, particularly the outsourcing of services where the kickbacks occurred. Sadly, this revelation is not surprising. In his quest to privatize government, Bush has failed to institute controls that hold people accountable.

The scandal does not refute the value of privatization, which can cut costs, improve efficiency and enhance the state's economy. But it does make us wonder whether the Bush administration's blind faith in the private sector created an atmosphere that invited abuse.

At the Department of Corrections, 21 employees have now been prosecuted on various criminal charges. If more rigorous controls had been in place, would Crosby and former regional director Allen Clark have felt free to negotiate payoffs from a vendor seeking the concessions business?

The prison system is just the latest example of sloppy outsourcing.

The most infamous case involves Convergys Corp., a Cincinnati-based company hired four years ago to process the paychecks and benefits of state employees. The company's work has been riddled with errors, including late paychecks and the possible release of employees' personal information. This contract has not come close to achieving the expected savings.

As another example, the head of the now-defunct commission overseeing the state's five privately run prisons was accused of fraud. A state review found that rather than protecting taxpayers, the commission was more concerned with boosting the profits of politically influential businesses.

In yet another example, a law enforcement investigation last year concluded that insider information might have helped a company win a $126 million technology contract to run the state's computer servers. The contract was canceled.

And just two weeks ago, an audit found that outsourcing the child welfare system has cost taxpayers more than before and that children are suffering an increased incidence of abuse.

To his credit, the governor acknowledges moving too quickly in privatizing the state's businesses. During the last legislative session, he supported tighter controls over outsourcing projects.

There's a lesson here. Bush's success in shrinking government should have been a crowning achievement. Instead, his impressive legacy will be tarnished by a culture of privatization that makes it too easy for people to dip into the taxpayers' till.

More Insurance Hikes on the Horizon

Even as Nationwide filed Thursday for a statewide average 71-percent increase in home insurance rates, State Farm warned a similarly large hike it had sought won't be enough.  (Insurers want more rate hikes, Tallahassee Democrat)

State Farm Florida has withdrawn its pending filing for a 79-percent increase, telling regulators its costs have risen significantly since the original request was made in May.  There is no mention of when State Farm might resubmit its request, and company representatives declined comment Thursday.

Nationwide, which last year stopped writing new business in Florida, has 261,300 policies, including more than 8,000 in Brevard and 3,700 in Indian River counties; 7,400 in Lee, 5,000 in Collier and 2,800 in Charlotte counties; 5,700 in Escambia and 2,300 in Santa Rosa counties. The proposed rates would go into effect Nov. 10.

Nationwide's 71-percent rate increase request gives coastal residents a comparative break, proposing the biggest hikes for Floridians who once enjoyed the discount of living north or far from the water.  The company seeks hikes ranging from 120 percent in Orange County to 180 percent in Jefferson County.  Local increases range from 14 percent to 54 percent in Brevard County, 20 percent to 47 percent in Lee and Collier counties, and 42 percent to 74 percent in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.

''This is where we need to go to make sure we are there for our customers in the long run,'' national corporate spokesman Joe Case said. ''We're playing catch-up. What we're trying to do is build capital.''

A third, smaller, insurer filed Thursday for a 93-percent average rate hike. Michigan-based Homepointe Insurance seeks the increase by October. It covers almost 22,000 policyholders. The increases include hikes of 115 percent to 119 percent for portions of Brevard, Escambia and Lee counties.

Both State Farm and Nationwide attempt to protect themselves from hurricane losses in Florida by buying their own catastrophe coverage to protect it from huge storm claims. It is those reinsurance costs that are cited to justify the bulk of the rate hikes.

''While such coverage is necessary, we unfortunately do not have regulatory authority over what these re-insurers charge,'' Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said.

However, both State Farm and Nationwide seek to buy most of their reinsurance from their parent companies, at rates triple what they paid in 2004. If the year is without major storms, the national companies keep that as profit.

Nationwide of Florida seeks to pay $137 million to its parent company.  State Farm proposed to pay $447 million to its national parent, part of a $661 million reinsurance package it now says won't be enough.

''Because the net costs of reinsurance have changed (increased significantly), we are withdrawing this filing,'' State Farm actuary Robert Kelley wrote in a June 29 letter to regulators.

Both companies also seek higher profits in Florida, to offset what they say is the risk of large losses.  Embedded in Nationwide's and State Farm's filings were 15 percent underwriting profits - larger than the state's recommended margin of 3.7 percent.

Strip out such ''excessive'' profit, and State Farm would have been left with only a 16-percent increase, according to calculations by Stephen Alexander, an actuary working for Florida's Insurance Consumer Advocate Steve Burgess.

However, McCarty denied a request for a hearing to bring up Alexander's findings. Burgess is now likely to get that public testimony if State Farm re-files its rate request.

''I am extremely concerned about the impact this requested rate hike would be on Floridians' pocketbooks, particularly those with low incomes or on fixed incomes,'' McCarty said in a written statement Thursday commenting on Nationwide's filing. However, he noted he must also ensure companies collect enough money to pay storm losses in bad years.

McCarty's office has 90 days to rule on rate filings and by law must hold a public hearing for requests for increases over 15 percent.

►  The insurance market in Florida is melting down faster than the polar ice cap. Consider the situation as we enter this year's hurricane season.  (Free market would sort out insurance mess, Mike Thomas column, Orlando Sentinel)

Our state-run insurance company, Citizens Property, went broke. A separate state-run catastrophe fund to pay hurricane damages went broke. 
You are being taxed billions to bail out both, basically subsidizing homeowners' insurance for coastal residents.  And as you pay their bills, private insurers jack up your rates.

This double-whammy only will get worse. Private insurers are dumping policies. As they do, Citizens Property is obligated to pick them up. Citizens now is the state's largest insurer with more than 1 million policies.

Every home Citizens takes on increases your risk because you ultimately are responsible for paying any damage claims arising from it.  Meanwhile, more condos and homes are going up in hurricane alley. It's a good bet many eventually will end up insured by Citizens, adding billions more to our risk portfolio.

When the next monster hurricane crashes ashore, it literally will be the perfect storm.  We will face huge tax increases. More private insurers will bail out, dumping even more policies on Citizens Property, creating even more risk for the next storm as this cycle continues feeding on itself.

We are facing socialized insurance in Florida, paid for with never-ending tax increases. Of course, this can't be the politicians' fault. Nor can it be attributed to the fact that people who live in high-risk zones aren't paying high-enough premiums.

So it has to be blamed on the evil insurance companies. Politicians have exploited this simplistic vilification for years. They have used it to keep rates artificially low through regulation.

Bill Nelson played this game as insurance commissioner, using it as a springboard to the U.S. Senate.  As he moved to block rate increases on hurricane policies, here is what an attorney from the Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association (the predecessor to Citizens Property) warned in a letter to the Sentinel:

"Would you be willing to pay an additional $200 or more for your homeowner's insurance this year -- and more after that -- so people who live on the coast and buy insurance from the (association) could keep their premiums artificially low?''

This was six years ago. As Nelson sits safely in the Senate, the chickens have come home to roost.

Politicians have a conflict of interest in regulating insurance rates. They pander to voters, and voters do not like to face reality. And the reality is that rates have to go way up, particularly on the coast.

The answer is not more regulation (depression) of insurance rates. If insurers are gouging us so badly, why are they dumping so many policies?

The answer is not a federal disaster fund to bail out the state disaster fund. The Federal Flood Insurance program just went bust and had to borrow about $25 billion from the U.S. Treasury. So we expand the concept?

Government intervention in insurance at any level has been a disaster.

End government regulation of rates. Let the free market set prices based on actual risk. As painful as that will be in the short run, it will attract insurers and their money, which is the only long-term solution.

►  Floridians are fed up and for good reason: 2006 is proving to be one of the costliest hurricane seasons ever -- despite the fact that a single hurricane has yet to batter the state.  (A needed voice, Orlando Sentinel editorial)

Allstate first boosted premiums for homeowners by 50 percent. State regulators then approved an increase in rates averaging 16 percent requested by Citizens Property, the state's insurer of last resort. State Farm proposed a net average increase of more than 70 percent on its homeowners policies. And this week, Nationwide said it will ask the state to OK an average hike of more than 70 percent to its rates.

When will it end? It won't, so long as insurers claim the inflated rates are justified because of the eight hurricanes that decimated Florida in the previous two years, causing almost $40 billion in insured damage.

And their requests won't be significantly modified either, so long as they come before the state Office of Insurance Regulation but not a public counsel representing the people.

Floridians have a public counsel to fight for them in proceedings before the Florida Public Service Commission. It's time the Legislature also created an Office of the Public Counsel to intervene in proceedings before the Office of Insurance Regulation.

Before the PSC, the public counsel performs independent analysis, presents testimony of expert witnesses and cross-examines utility witnesses.  Floridians need an advocate who can represent them in the same way before insurance regulators.

Tampa Bay:  The Next New Orleans?

Outside Robert Weisberg's office at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus, it was just another day in paradise, Tampa Bay style.  (Could Tampa Bay be the next New Orleans? Palm Beach Post)  Kayakers glided over the sparkling waters. A light breeze nudged limp palm fronds. Masts on docked boats stood at attention.

Weisberg, though, was oblivious to St. Pete's sunny charms. Seated in front of his computer, the oceanographer was focused on the dark side of coastal living: the threat of a major hurricane.

New Orleans will take years to recover from Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,000 and caused an economic loss of $125 billion.

If a storm similar in strength hit the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, Florida's most populous, the devastation could be even greater.

Consider this:

¥ The Tampa Bay metro area is 200 square miles larger and has 2.5 million people, compared with 1.3 million in metro New Orleans before Katrina.

¥ It is wealthier, creating the potential for greater property loss. The median price of a Tampa Bay home in 2004 was 28 percent higher than that of a New Orleans home, and the median household income was nearly 25 percent more.

¥ Largely built in the automobile age, the Tampa Bay area is one of the nation's most car-dependent metro areas, so any evacuation would be traffic-choked — even compared with New Orleans, where a traffic jam after the Katrina evacuation order lasted 24 hours. The number of Tampa Bay commuters who drove solo to work in 2004 was 250 percent greater than in New Orleans, census figures show.

¥ Tampa Bay has large vulnerable populations, especially in the St. Petersburg area, which has one of the greatest concentrations of elderly people in the nation. Almost a half-million residents are 65 or older, and more than 10 percent of those are at least 85 years old. Special-needs residents are encouraged to register with county emergency management agencies, but many don't, making it difficult for counties to find and rescue them.

¥ Above all, the Tampa Bay area is vulnerable simply because of its location. New Orleans had long topped emergency planners' list of nightmare targets for a major hurricane because of its setting at and below sea level near the storm-prone mouth of the Mississippi River. But Tampa isn't far behind when such factors are considered.

Historically, the west coast of Florida is a frequent target for hurricanes, yet as its population exploded during the past 40 years, it escaped being hit by a major storm. Experts agree that was an anomaly — one that ended in 2004, when Hurricane Charley flirted with a Tampa Bay landfall, then slammed into Port Charlotte, about 100 miles south.

Charley's $15 billion in damage is third in the record books only to Katrina and 1992's Hurricane Andrew.

Adding to Tampa Bay's vulnerability is its lack of practical experience with hurricanes. The last direct hit was in 1921, making it an event beyond the memory of all but a handful of current residents.  "The only thing they've experienced as far as a hurricane is Key Largo, with Humphrey Bogart," joked Bill Browne, a neighborhood leader in Tampa.

The unnamed 1921 storm came ashore near Tarpon Springs, north of St. Petersburg and Tampa, as a Category 2 hurricane — relatively moderate on the five-step hurricane scale. Yet its counterclockwise winds drove Gulf of Mexico water up the narrow mouth of Tampa Bay, where it piled up in the shallow estuary.

The result was a wall of wind-driven water that wrecked Tampa's bayfront and affected properties many miles inland.

The area's population then was about 150,000. It has since grown more than sixteenfold, with much of it concentrated on land less than 20 feet above sea level.

"The potential here for hurricane storm surge is catastrophic," said Weisberg, the USF marine sciences professor.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts another "very active" hurricane season this year, with 13 to 16 named storms, eight to 10 hurricanes and four to six major hurricanes.  So far, the only significant storm in the gulf has been Tropical Storm Alberto, which brought heavy rain to parts of northwest Florida and south Georgia. But the bulk of storms in any hurricane season generally happen in August and September.

Sitting at his computer, Weisberg simulated what would happen if 2004's Hurricane Ivan — which killed 25 after coming ashore near Gulf Shores, Ala., and caused extensive flooding in Atlanta — had veered east, striking Tampa Bay.  The results were unmistakable: "Had Ivan come here, we would have been devastated."

In Weisberg's simulation, the Category 3 storm — similar in intensity to Katrina, but much more compact — unleashes winds that push gulf waters into the bay, flooding parts of downtown Tampa, Tampa General Hospital, MacDill Air Force Base and the Port of Tampa. Under the right conditions in Tampa Bay, Ivan's surge might have reached 20 feet, Weisberg said.

"It's like starting a wave at one end of a bathtub," said Gary Vickers, emergency management director for Pinellas County. "Where does it go?"

It goes through the middle of Pinellas County, a peninsula that is home to nearly 1 million people, inundating land between St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

The surge would threaten the first two floors of Tampa General, the second-largest hospital in the metro area, forcing patients, employees and equipment to move to the middle floors. One mile north, powerful gusts and hurricane-induced tornadoes would pry windows from Tampa's downtown office towers.  "There would be glass in the streets," Fire Chief Dennis Jones said.

At MacDill, a 5,000-acre base south of downtown Tampa at the end of a long, low peninsula, U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special Operations Command and the 6th Air Mobility Wing all would have to scurry to safety.  Led by four-star U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. Central Command is running the war in Iraq. Its operations would move to Qatar in the Persian Gulf.

But the Port of Tampa — Florida's largest and the entry point for much of the state's gasoline — would close. Tourism, worth more than $9 billion annually in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, would come to a halt. About 40,000 students at Tampa-based USF would be shut out of classes.  Near the port, the Florida Aquarium, with tanks holding 1 million gallons of fresh water and seawater, also would be flooded.

Gas at stations close to Walt Disney World in the Orlando area and elsewhere would be in short supply. Traffic on Interstates 275, 75 and 4, the bay area's major highways, would inch along as perhaps 1 million people attempted to evacuate.

Ivan's pounding surge severely damaged the Escambia Bay Bridge on I-10 in Pensacola, severing its westbound span. In Tampa Bay, a similar hurricane could take out one or more of the three bridges that connect Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, which hours before landfall would be crammed with evacuees.

But many others wouldn't leave, gambling that after the storm, help would find them.

Tampa Bay emergency planners have long been aware of the perils the bay area could face. Residents also are awakening to the danger.

"Every city along the coast that is historically affected by hurricanes has a heightened concern after Katrina," said Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who acknowledged that a major hurricane "would be a catastrophic event in our area."

During the Hurricane Charley evacuation two years ago, only about half of those who were supposed to leave did.

Vint and Lois Hubbard, retirees from Flint, Mich., live on the 12th floor of one of the two Ocean Sands condominium buildings in Madeira Beach, a town of 5,000 directly on the gulf.  Although their beachfront home is in a first-line evacuation zone, they say they will not evacuate unless the approaching storm is Category 4, with wind speeds of 131 to 155 mph.

The Hubbards have spent $9,000 on hurricane shutters and socked away five days' worth of bottled water and canned food. They have faith in the strength of their unadorned concrete building.  "It's got to be a big wave to get to me," Vint Hubbard said, standing on a balcony that offers an unobstructed view of the gulf's turquoise waters, where dolphins, and sometimes manatees, swim.  "You don't want to be stuck on the interstate when a hurricane comes by," his wife said.

But the threat of hurricanes already has stung Ocean Sands' 300 or so residents. Insurance for the buildings soared 142 percent this year after the private insurer quit and Ocean Sands had to sign up with state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

The association took out a loan to pay the bill and assessed residents $1,055 to pay off the loan, said Bill Langdon, president of the homeowners association.

Hurricane worries also have contributed to slumping condo sales. Two-bedroom units priced in the high $700,000s used to be snapped up, Langdon said. Now, 14 are for sale and aren't moving.  "We haven't sold anything in here for almost a year," he said.

Bay area residents often talk about hurricanes, but ultimately the Gulf Coast's beauty trumps any fears, mortgage banker Don Blockel said. Standing astride his Trek bicycle, Blockel was checking out a new subdivision on Old Tampa Bay, where homes start at $2 million.

He recently bought a townhouse nearby, fulfilling a dream of living on the water. "You walk out your back door and you're in Tampa Bay," he said, marveling at where he's landed.  But the 41-year-old fishing enthusiast readily acknowledged his investment's inherent risk — that someday he might be faced with a killer storm.  "It's not if, it's when," Blockel said. "We know it's coming."

Lack of Money to Reform Boot Camps Leads to Shutdowns

Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder warned early, clearly and often that the state was not investing enough to rehabilitate teenage criminals.  (Empty boot-camp boast, Palm Beach Post editorial)  This year, as in years before, Gov. Bush and the Legislature dismissed his concerns. "The other sheriffs," Gov. Bush said of the state's $10.5 million budget for juvenile boot camps, "believe that it's more than adequate." Now, the other sheriffs see that it's not.

Last week, Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats and Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells announced that they were closing their boot camps because the state did not provide enough money. After 12 years of haggling with the state for more money, Sheriff Crowder's boot camp held its last graduation June 9. Now, there is just one juvenile boot camp left - Polk County's. The Central Florida county sheriff told The Miami Herald that he is signing a contract with the state Department of Juvenile Justice while "holding my nose."

The camps are closing because the state offered a political solution to a budgeting problem. The beating death of Martin Lee Anderson by guards at a juvenile boot camp in January and the image-conscious response by state officials prompted a close-the-boot-camps chorus. That was the easy and quick conclusion. More deliberation should have gone into the next step.

The state decided to convert the boot camps into Sheriff's Training and Respect academies. But as the state proclaimed Sheriff Crowder's program the model for the so-called STAR centers, the budgeting and planning proceeded without his input. Although lawmakers asked what it would take to replicate Sheriff Crowder's 80 percent success rate with his boot-camp graduates, they ignored his $3.6 million budget for employee training, on-site medical care and techniques that focused on breaking a child's bad habits, not his body or spirit.

Although a Hillsborough County medical examiner has determined that Martin Anderson's death was caused by guards who suffocated him, no one has been charged in the 14-year-old's death. There will be only one STAR center in the whole state.

With Martin Anderson's parents at his side, Gov. Bush on May 31 abolished the boot camps with the signing of the law named in the teen's honor. "Your son won't come back," he told Martin's parents, Robert Anderson and Gina Jones, "but you're going to be part of something bigger than yourself." The state has yet to deliver on that promise.

►  The law that was supposed to give juvenile offenders a better chance to turn around their lives has instead reduced the chances, and don't blame Pinellas Sheriff Jim Coats.  (After boot camps, St. Petersburg Times editorial)  Coats, faced with new state mandates his department couldn't afford, had little choice but to follow three other sheriffs and close his boot camp.

The result is that one month after Gov. Jeb Bush ceremoniously signed the Martin Lee Anderson Act into law, only one juvenile camp remains in Florida. The law that was intended to shave the rough and dangerous edges off physically brutal boot camps has instead all but eliminated them.

The law was born of good intentions. Anderson, 14, died Jan. 6 after being roughed up by deputies at a boot camp in Bay County. But the new law comes with more oversight and new requirements that weren't fully compensated by the state's increased reimbursement rate, and elected sheriffs can't help but notice the explosive political climate.

Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, who deserves credit for exposing the mistreatment in Bay County, demonstrated some of that political bluster in his reaction to Coats' decision. "If they don't want to be in the business the way the state thinks they should be," he told a reporter, "then they should find something else to do."

Barreiro's remark is a cheap shot. Coats and former Sheriff Everett Rice, now a candidate for attorney general, showed a genuine commitment to boot camps and rehabilitation when other sheriffs did not. Facing a discouraging history of rearrest for juveniles in the program and an unreimbursed $1.3-million increase for this fiscal year, though, Coats reasonably concluded he simply could not afford to continue.

Likewise, Polk Sheriff Grady Judd, who now runs the only remaining juvenile camp in the state, is less than enthusiastic. "There's just so much bureaucratic overlap now," he said. "Making this program work is a tremendous burden."

The failures in the Bay County boot camp were shared ones, between the sheriff who operated it and the state Department of Juvenile Justice that largely looked the other way. If there is to be a new beginning and a new way to turn around the lives of some troubled teenagers, then the solutions must be shared as well.

Report Urges Continued Judicial Oversight of Everglades Cleanup

A federal judge should accept Florida's plan to reduce pollution in the Everglades, but maintain oversight of the cleanup and order the state to stick to a timetable that would complete critical projects within four years.  (Report:  Glades watchdog still needed, Miami Herald)

Those were the key recommendations in a report filed Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who ruled last year that high readings of phosphorus in a Palm Beach County wildlife refuge violated a 1992 landmark settlement that required the state to stem the flow of farm and suburban pollutants into the Everglades by year's end.

The much-anticipated advisory opinion from Miami attorney John Barkett, a special master appointed by Moreno to held decide what ''remedies'' should be imposed for the violation, proved somewhat of a split decision, to borrow a boxing term.

Both sides in the 14-year-old case claimed victory in Barkett's 108-page report, which cited ''considerable progress'' but also, in one of a sprinkling of colorful passages, warned that more delay would be costly to the environment.

'If the flora and fauna could speak, they would be grateful for the efforts to date to reduce phosphorus inflow, but would still be making this plea, `We have received too much phosphorus for too long. Please don't allow any more in.' ''

For the state and regional water managers, the key was what was not among Barkett's recommendations. There was no call for any major, potentially expensive expansion of an ongoing effort, which already has cost more than $1.1 billion.

The report cited the state's commitment to add nearly 18,000 acres to an existing 41,000-acre chain of pollution-absorbing marshes. It also noted a string of good water-quality readings since the 2004 violation in the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in western Palm Beach County.

''The fact that there was a violation in the past and we have cured it is not anything to worry about,'' said Ernie Barnett, director of policy and legislation for the South Florida Water Management District, which is managing the cleanup with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  ''The bottom line is we are doing the right things,'' he said. ``I think the report clearly affirms that.''

But the Miccosukee Tribe and environmental groups said the report confirmed years of criticism that the state had fallen far behind on work to meet a super-low standard for phosphorus, which degrades Everglades habitat, by Dec. 31.

Tribe spokeswoman Joette Lorion said Barkett's report flatly rejected state arguments that the violations had been ''false positives'' and urged Moreno to set hard deadlines for completing projects.  ''In the history of Everglades and water quality, nothing ever gets done without someone ordering it be done,'' she said.

More critically, she said, Barkett advised Moreno to stay on the case after the year-end deadline to monitor progress on construction and water quality studies. That runs counter to the desires of Gov. Jeb Bush and regional water managers, who have lobbied in Washington for federal support in requesting an end to judicial oversight.  ''The Everglades needs a policeman on the corner in the form of a federal judge,'' she said.

David Guest, an attorney with Earthjustice who represents a number of environmental groups in the case, said the report did give the state some breaks, for instance, by recommending adopting the worst-case dates of a construction schedule proposed by the state. Barkett also did not take up some environmental group recommendations, such as mandating better management practices for farms or speeding up the adoption of new treatment systems in the marsh.  The latter, he wrote, shouldn't happen until ongoing pilot projects show results.

But Barkett rejected arguments from the state that the 1992 agreement's method for measuring pollution in the Loxahatchee was ``fatally flawed.''

Instead, Florida wants to use a controversial pollution standard that lawmakers adopted for the vast portions of the Everglades not in federal hands and not covered under the settlement, known as a consent decree. Environmentalists contend that would water down the cleanup and extend the deadline by as much as a decade.

''They got something, but we got most of what we wanted,'' Guest said. ``We got the appetizers, all seven courses and dessert. The only thing we missed was the glass of brandy to finish the meal.''

But Barnett said that the recommendations, if adopted by Moreno, would not change anything the state already plans to do. Moreno has not indicated when he will rule.

The state's plan to expand the marshes has been in the works for years and it already provides the court with periodic progress reports, he said. He also argued that the settlement spelled out that construction deadlines would be set by the state under administrative procedures, not by the judge. ''That's something I don't believe a court would do,'' Barnett said. ''A judge can't go in and unilaterally add additional dates and deadlines'' to a long-standing settlement.

In his report, Barkett touched on a number of other concerns about the cleanup -- notably, the imposing challenge of reducing contamination from Lake Okeechobee.

He also chided state and federal agencies for failing to resolve technical disputes or do adequate research to resolve them.  ''In the Special Master's view,'' he wrote, 'the parties need to take some teenage advice and `chill out' a bit. It is unrealistic to believe that there will not be missteps from time to time in Everglades restoration. . . . Under this decree, violations are not penalties for a failure to act or for a wrongful act. Rather, they are a warning that something may not be working.''

Environmental Groups Differ on Babcock Purchase

Concerned that the heirs to magnate Fred Babcock won't wait out a prolonged legal fight, a coalition of environmental groups plans to fight the Sierra Club's attempt to block Florida's $310 million conservation purchase of Babcock Ranch.  (Groups to join in fight over Babcock sale, Tallahassee Democrat)

Audubon of Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Everglades Trust and others plan to announce today that they're intervening in the legal challenge the Sierra Club launched last month to block development plans on part of the 92,000-acre ranch in Charlotte and Lee counties.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the Babcock family said early Wednesday that they had a back-up buyer for the ranch, and that unless the legal hurdle is quickly squelched, "the opportunity for public purchase will be gone forever."

Florida has been trying for five years to conserve the ranch to help create a natural corridor for animals connecting Lake Okeechobee to Charlotte Harbor. But escalating real-estate prices had been an impediment. Last summer, West Palm Beach developer Syd Kitson announced he would buy the ranch and re-sell its pristine parts to the public in exchange for development rights on a corner of the property.

The Florida Legislature appropriated $310 million for the deal, which was contingent on state approval of Kitson's development plan. But Sierra Club last month challenged those plans to build a new town of 45,000 people on a corner of the ranch in Charlotte County, a deal most environmentalists felt was a necessary trade-off to keep the remainder of the ranch undeveloped.

"Any idea that stopping the Kitson plan will mean the state could purchase any or all of the land is badly mistaken and untrue," the Babcock family statement read.

The rare public discord between Florida environmentalists reflects a growing divide over how to respond to Florida's rampant and inland-moving development push.

"We've never done anything like this that I recall in 25 years," said Manley Fuller, director of the Florida Wildlife Federation. "But if you hold up the (sale), you threaten a deal we would never be able to put back together again."

Sierra Club Florida director Frank Jackalone has said his group only wanted to scale back the size of the development. A lawyer for the group said the legal challenge could take as long as 10 months to play out.

But the Babcock family chastised the group in its statement Wednesday, saying Sierra "did not actively participate in the process to create the Kitson plan" and their challenge "appears to be designed to spoil the transaction at this late date."

Jackalone did not immediately return a call to his office Wednesday morning.

The state and Lee County had planned to pay Kitson $351 million later this month for roughly 73,000 acres of wetlands, forest and flatlands on the ranch. Kitson has a purchase agreement with the Babcock family, which has owned the vast land tract for a century.

In an open letter to the Sierra Club last month, nine environmental groups wrote that Sierra Club's legal challenge was imperiling the entire state sale. 
"Attorneys for the Babcock family have asserted that they have a cash deposit from a backup buyer," they wrote in the letter dated June 23. "They have also indicated that the backup buyer has no intention of selling part of the ranch to the state."

Environmental attorney and activist Thom Rumberger, a former state Republican Party lawyer who now works for the Everglades Trust, said the groups tried and failed to convince Sierra Club to drop the legal fight.  "You can make the assumption that we're not acting precipitously," he said.

Gay-Marriage Prohibition Faces Deadline

As a Wednesday deadline looms for opponents of same-sex marriage, supporters are gearing up with their own campaign to make Florida's marriage laws gay-friendly.  (Gay marriage foes push petition, South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

Opponents of gay marriage, supported by the Florida Coalition To Protect Marriage, will pass around a flurry of petitions in the coming days to try to meet their deadline to get enough signatures to force a constitutional amendment question onto Florida's 2008 ballot.

The coalition has missed several self-imposed deadlines like this one, but chairman John Stemberger, of Orlando, thinks the group is getting close.  "Momentum has built up in the last few weeks," said Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an offshoot of Focus on the Family, a national conservative Christian group. "This is our own internal push to finish the job."

Meanwhile, a Florida gay-rights group has begun a campaign to educate voters about the upcoming ballot.  Equality Florida says Stemberger's coalition is finding the signature-gathering process is not so easy.

"They have consistently failed to meet every self-imposed deadline," said Brian Winfield, communications director of the St. Petersburg-based group, which says it has 14,000 active supporters. "It's a lot more work than they thought it would be."

Still, Equality Florida knows the organizers are likely to get enough signatures by the deadline. In response, members are preparing their own campaign, called FairnessForAllFamilies.org, to oppose the amendment.

Equality thinks the majority of Floridians approve of gay unions: A poll the group commissioned last year found 55 percent of state residents favored "legal domestic partnerships" that would provide gay and lesbian couples the same benefits, such as health insurance, that married heterosexuals get.

However, the Coalition To Protect Marriage thinks there is a core of Floridians who will vote in favor of the amendment, especially with a presidential election on the ballot.

The Florida Supreme Court agreed in March to allow a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage to go on the 2008 ballot if backers get enough voters' signatures. They had gathered about 466,000 at last count, but need 611,009, or 8 percent of the people who voted in the last presidential election. Officially, organizers have another 18 months to get the signatures.

The coalition is riding a wave of hostility toward gay marriage that began in February 2004, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court cleared the way for gay and lesbian couples in the state to marry. When President Bush was re-elected in November 2004, there were 11 anti-gay marriage initiatives on state ballots, and some political analysts think the amendments' presence on those ballots helped turn out support for the president and other Republicans. Twenty states have amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage and six more will ask voters to add amendments this fall.

Still, some think the anti-gay marriage push may have run its course by the time Florida votes in 2008.  "I don't see it as a huge factor for turnout," said Daniel Smith, political science professor at the University of Florida. "It allowed Republicans to have a moral-values issue in 2004, when they needed an issue. But this time around, it's seen as more of a ploy. Florida already bans gay marriage."

Florida's law, passed in 1997, limits marriage to two persons of the opposite sex. But supporters of the amendment say the law could be overturned in court. They seek an amendment that judges can't touch. Republicans think this twist will appeal to voters: The party has contributed about $300,000 to the campaign, Smith said.

Stemberger said his coalition had been wondering how to generate interest in the campaign over the summer when two unexpected incidents in June brought publicity to the petition drive.

In Sunrise, volunteers collecting signatures at a Promise Keepers convention said they were ridiculed by police officers, who they said removed petitions from a table, threatened them with arrest and kissed each other to "mock the volunteers," according to a complaint filed with the Police Department.

Stemberger said the group also got an unexpected boost when a Jacksonville church published the names of the more than 400,000 who have signed the group's petitions. Leaders of the nondenominational Christ Church of Peace said they wanted to show an alternative voice in the debate over gay marriage.

"Their effort helped us considerably," Stemberger said. The name posting brought new attention to the coalition and helped members gather more signatures, he said.  Petition-signers are not only Republicans, Stemberger said, but a "good mix of Catholics and Protestants."

One Protestant church that has become an enthusiastic supporter of the amendment is the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach. The Rev. O'Neal Dozier said he has been pressing his congregation to gather signatures for months.  "This was a biblical issue before it became political," Dozier said. "We don't want to see marriage changed. It could spread marriage into things God never intended. Then there are no boundaries."

Sidney Lanier, of West Palm Beach, has also been gathering signatures. A member of Northwood Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, he said he has gotten an assortment of responses when he has asked people to sign.  "It ranges from, `Yes, thank you for doing this,' to `No, I disagree,'" Lanier said. He said he sent Stemberger an envelope with 46 signatures last week.

Still, not all Baptist churches have embraced the campaign. Lanier's pastor, the Rev. Patrick Moody, said he has not exhorted his congregation to support the amendment.

"The Bible clearly states marriage is between a man and a woman, but that doesn't mean we exclude anyone," Moody said. "Some in the church are politically motivated, but we're not motivated from the pulpit to preach in that way."

Florida Policy Notes

►  A state Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that threw out a $145 billion judgment against the nation's largest tobacco companies won't impact Florida's own $13 billion settlement with the cigarette companies.  (Ruling wonÕt void tobacco firmsÕ deal with state, Gainesville Sun)  In fact, former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who led the state's effort to sue the tobacco companies, said there is a silver lining in the ruling. He said there was some concern that if the record damages award was allowed to stand it could have jeopardized the financial health of the cigarette manufacturers, meaning they may have had to default on annual payments to the state.  "I for one am glad that a cigarette company loses every case they get involved in," said Butterworth, who is now the dean of the St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami.  But Butterworth said he believed from the beginning that the trial court went too far in allowing a jury to award $145 billion in punitive damages against the tobacco companies in 2000. He said the law prohibits an award from being so excessive that it could bankrupt a companyÉ.The 1997 settlement provides the state with about $400 million a year that is used for a wide array of programs, ranging from health-care services for the elderly and children to biomedical research. The payments are scheduled to be made through 2033É.He also said the initiation of a youth anti-smoking campaign was important part of the settlement. But funding for the anti-smoking program, which began at $70 million in 1999, has dropped in recent years to as low as $1 million. Earlier this year, lawmakers offered a partial revival of the program, agreeing to spend $5.6 million on the anti-smoking programs during this budget year. 
Butterworth said a well-funded anti-smoking program, including television advertising, would help prevent many Florida teens from taking up smoking. Voters will have a say on the anti-smoking program this fall, as coalition led by groups such as the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association has placed a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot that will require at least 15 percent of the state's annual tobacco funds be spent on anti-smoking efforts.

 

►  Gov. Jeb Bush has wanted to get rid of the state's intangibles tax on investments from the moment he first walked through the door nearly eight years ago, and the Florida Legislature finally gave him the chance last spring by passing a bill that would erase the levy entirely.  (Bush saving favored bill for last?  John Kennedy/Jason Garcia, Orlando Sentinel)  Someone might want to remind the governor that he still needs to sign the thing, though.  Of the 379 bills lawmakers sent to the governor's desk last spring, Bush has signed 363 and allowed another to become law without his signature. He has vetoed just 14, a paltry figure compared with the 37 he shot down last year.  The single bill Bush has yet to take action on is the one that will do away with the intangibles tax, a 50-cent-per-$1,000 levy on stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other assets that has been on the books, in one form or another, since 1931.  "I was kind of thinking, maybe it was my breath," joked Rep. Fred Brummer, the Apopka Republican who steered the legislation (HB 209) through the Florida House.  Not that he and other bill backers are worried. Though critics deride the intangibles-tax cut as little more than a favor for rich folks -- the average payer is a millionaire, and retirement funds such as savings accounts and 401(k) plans are already exempt from the levy -- Bush has made his feelings about the tax plenty clear over the years.  "It's a stupid tax. It's an insidious tax. It's an evil tax. It's a bad tax," he said last spring.  People close to Bush say he has delayed signing the bill to do away with that "stupid" tax -- a move expected to cost the state about $160 million next year -- to highlight the accomplishment. The governor, they say, sees it as a fitting capstone to his eight years in office, during which he has signed into law close to $19 billion in tax cuts.  Said one person familiar with Bush's thinking, "He wanted it to be the last bill he ever signed."

 

►  Less than two months before early voting begins, many county elections supervisors are worried about a voter registration system that never has been used in a statewide election, as well as a new state attitude regarding the scrubbing of felons from voter rolls.  (County elections chiefs worry about state control of voter lists, Palm Beach Post)  In sharp contrast to the 2000 elections, when thousands of eligible voters were mistakenly purged from the rolls because of an error-riddled felon voter list, elections supervisors say the state is going to the other extreme, thoroughly checking and removing new registrants but too often allowing felons already registered to remain.  County supervisors and the state disagree over who has the authority to remove a felon from the Florida Voter Registration System.  Elections supervisors contend that, under state law, the authority is theirs.  But state officials say the supervisors must enter the prospective voter's information into the system and it cannot be removed until the Division of Elections determines the voter is a felon whose civil rights have not been restored and thus is ineligible to vote.  "They're overstepping their authority," said Kurt Browning, Pasco County elections supervisor. "They are not turning out felons quickly enough for us. They are being so overly cautious."  Browning and his 66 supervisor colleagues also are nervous about the state's new $22 million voter registration database, which contains nearly 12 million voters' records but has not been tested statewide. Officials will use it for the first time in a statewide election when early voting begins Aug. 21.  "There's a lot of trepidation.... It's like here's a new plane we're giving you and we've never tested it before, and we want you to take it up to 36,000 feet. And what's more, let's load it up with passengers," Browning said.  State officials say they are prepared for the primary, but an inspector general's audit found weaknesses in the state elections system, including duplicate listings and inaccuracies. The department has failed to ensure the Florida Voter Registration System's "security, uniformity and integrity," the audit found.