Well-Being of Florida's Children Lags Behind Most Other States

Florida Policy News, July 3, 2006

"Little Improvement" for Florida's Children

There is little improvement in the well-being of Florida's 4 million children.  (Florida Monitor Weekly, June 30, 2006, Office of Program Policy and Governmental Analysis)

Florida failed to show significant improvement in any of 10 indicators although its ranking increased slightly from 35th to 33rd among the 50 states and District of Columbia. In the two previous years, Florida had been 34th. In Florida, 8.5% of the state's babies are born underweight, 70 deaths from all causes for every 100,000 teens, and 9% of teenagers neither attend school nor work.

Other findings show that 8% of Florida's children live in extreme poverty, 42% live in low-income families and 15% lack health insurance - all the same as last year. In other categories 22% of children under age 6 live in families classified as working poor and 68% of low-income families with children spend at least 30% of their household incomes on housing. Florida's most significant improvement since 2000 has been in the teen birth rate, which has decreased by eight births for every thousand female teens from 51 that year to 43 in 2003. 

►  The plight of Florida's children improved slightly in the last year, but the state continues to lag behind most others in how well it cares for its youngest residents, according to a national study released Tuesday.  (Study:  Children faring a bit better, St. Petersburg Times)

Florida ranks 33rd out of 50 states in the annual Kids Count study that measures how well children are faring, based on numerous factors such as education, family income and death rates.

The state moved up from last year's ranking of 35th in the study, considered among many child advocates to be the premiere state-by-state review of children's well-being.

The improvement was marginal, but it is significantly better than 15 years ago, when Florida ranked closer to the bottom at 45th.

Still, of the study's 10 main indicators, Florida fell in the bottom half of all states for all but three. It improved on six measures, worsened on three and saw no change on one: children living in single-parent families.

The state's children were less likely than kids in other states to die young or live with unemployed parents.

But they were more likely to be born tiny or to drop out of school.

Overall, New Hampshire led the nation, while Mississippi came in last. Florida has jumped back and forth between 35th and 33rd in the last five years of the study by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore.

The lack of significant improvement in recent years worried many child workers around the state.  "We're one of the wealthiest states in per capita income, but we're one of the poorest on child welfare," said Dr. Peter Gorski, director of program impact for the Children's Board of Hillsborough County. "There's no excuse for that."

Florida's per capita income is about $33,200.

The state's wealth should lead to a higher ranking and more of an emphasis on improving the lives of the young, said the Tallahassee-based Children's Campaign.  After the study became available Tuesday, the organization issued a press release chiding the state for failing to use its growing resources to improve children's lives.

The organization's leaders said the only real improvement made since 2000 is in the teen birth rate, which decreased from eight births for every thousand.

Statewide, the number of low-birth-weight babies worsened, as did the teen death rate and the number of teens who are not working or in school.

Of all categories, Florida's worst ranking among the states was in the number of children living in single-parent families. It ranked 43rd, with 36 percent of children residing with only one parent.

"Even though our ranking has improved, our numbers have remained relatively stagnant," said Amanda Ostrander, coordinator of communications and policy for the Children's Campaign, a nonprofit statewide child advocacy group. "We're still not making children a priority."

But longtime Tallahassee child advocate Jack Levine said Florida, while still near the bottom, has made great strides in the last 15 years.  The state has funneled money to infant health and childhood abuse and neglect prevention programs, which have improved the outlook for children across the state.  "There is no state in the nation that has come further and faster in its relative ranking than Florida," he said.

The state rankings are interesting, but the focus should be on analyzing the details of the study and using them to improve the lives of children, said Susan Weitzel, director of the Kids Count Florida and the Center for the Study of Children's Futures at the University of South Florida.  "We need to focus on our children," Weitzel said, "and how they're being cared for under the system we have provided in our state and across the United States on a daily basis."

►  A national report that shows little improvement in the well-being of Florida's 4 million children is evidence the state should have spent more of its revenue surplus on kids, a statewide advocacy group said Tuesday.  (Kids' advocates blast state on spending choices, Miami Herald)

Florida failed to show significant improvement in any of the 10 indicators cited in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2006 Kids Count Data Book, although its ranking increased slightly from 35th to 33rd among the 50 states and District of Columbia. In the two previous years, Florida had been 34th.

''Florida could have seen improvement if it had directed a fair share of the state budget surplus to Florida's children,'' said Amanda Ostrander, coordinator of communications and policy for the nonprofit Tallahassee-based Children's Campaign. ``The state failed to seize an opportunity.''

The Children's Campaign advocates for maternal and children's healthcare, child protection, high-quality early learning programs, before- and after-school activities and juvenile justice accountability and fairness.

House Fiscal Council Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, defended the Legislature's track record. He said lawmakers provided enough money to pay for every child who qualifies for the state's KidCare health insurance program, increased payments to foster parents by $60 per month and approved the largest spending increase in the state's history for public schools -- $1.77 billion, or 8.7 percent more money for every student.

Lawmakers, however, turned down a $15 million proposal to add children of legal migrants and state workers to the KidCare program, which provides low-cost health insurance for families.

''The primary responsibility for the well-being of children rests with the parents, not the government,'' Negron said.  He said some of the child advocates' favorite programs are of ''dubious merit'' and that the Legislature funds only those that actually work.

"No Bigger Shame" Thank Child Welfare

Florida has no bigger shame than its child welfare system, which over the years has repeatedly failed to protect some number of vulnerable children from abuse and neglect, sometimes with deadly consequences.  (Bush Should Demand Better From Child Welfare System, Tampa Tribune editorial)

So it is infuriating to read a state audit which says that outsourcing the child welfare system has cost taxpayers much more than before and that since the system went private, children are being more quickly reunited with their parents and suffering an increased incidence of abuse.

Gov. Jeb Bush promised that privatization would make the child protection system better and more efficient, but the audit says the opposite has occurred. Given these results, the governor should be pounding the table and demanding better oversight of our most vulnerable children. However, his office remains silent on the topic, referring questions instead to the Department of Children & Families.

DCF chief Lucy Hadi doesn't dispute that the state pays more for private providers or that reabuse is up as children are more quickly returned home. One in nine children in protective custody suffered recurring abuse in 2004-05, the audit says, compared with one in 12 in 1998, when the state began outsourcing these services.

That adoptions are up and that children are spending less time in foster homes - both positive outcomes from privatization - does not lessen DCF's obligation to keep children out of unsafe homes.

The audit says DCF is hampered in its oversight, and since private firms are not required to report administrative costs - including the salaries of top managers - the public has no idea how its money is being spent. What the public does know is that the state is spending $625 million a year - 70 percent more than before - for private agencies to manage foster care, adoptions and family reunifications.

Despite this increased spending, the child protection system is doing no better job tracking down more than 650 kids who should be in its custody but are missing, the Miami Herald recently reported. There are serious questions of whether DCF is doing enough to look for the kids, who in some instances were kidnapped by biological parents who had lost custody to the state.

Does anyone need to be reminded what happens when protective services suffer from neglect? Does the name Bradley McGee ring a bell? How about Rilya Wilson, Alfredo Montez, Phoenix Parrish, Ronnie Paris, Kayla McKean or Jonathan Flam? Their sad stories all follow the same story line - little children who died from abuse while in the state's custody.

When is Florida going to get this right?

Oddly, Hadi defended the current system on the same day she fired three workers in Lee County for failing to protect a 13-year-old girl who had been sexually abused by her stepfather. A week after DCF sent Michelle Fontanez back home, she was found beaten and raped and later died. Her stepfather is charged with first-degree murder.

If anything, this incident reaffirms the need for the system not to let any child go unprotected.

It's one thing for the state to suffer transition trauma while privatizing bookkeeping or janitorial services. But in this case, children's lives are at stake. It's time for urgent leadership in assessing whether outsourcing is adequately serving children. Given this audit, the state may be well advised to take this service back.

Education:  FCAT, Teacher Pay, Improving Weak Schools

It's hard to hit a moving target. Skeptics say that's precisely the point of the state's confusing grading system for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests. The state is inviting such skepticism.  (FCATs, South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial)

There was rejoicing when this year's FCAT grades were announced in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Not a single school received an "F" grade, and there were plenty of "A's." A deeper analysis reveals that many schools didn't do as well as it seemed.

The state's assessment system is based on what amounts to a grading curve. A school with lower FCAT scores than another can still earn a better grade than the other school simply by showing sufficient improvement over the year before. Conversely, a school can drop a grade or even two if it fails to exceed its previous scores, even if it does well enough to maintain its grade in terms of raw performance.

It's important to give credit for improvement, but it ought to be done under a separate rubric. The current system provides no way to accurately compare schools based on a uniform standard. How can parents determine which schools they want their children to attend if there is no comprehensible standard on which to base their determination? And how can educators truly measure how they're doing when a school can earn an "A" simply by not being as abysmal as the year before?

It's enough to give ammunition to parents and others who say it's all smoke and mirrors to make Gov. Jeb Bush's educational reforms seem more successful than they really are. That's unfair, because the reforms have improved education at least by establishing much-needed accountability.

The reforms will never be fully successful, however, until school grades are based on standards that everyone can understand and that don't change from year to year.

►  A Brevard Public Schools investigation into errors in grade placement for some students at Cocoa High School has revealed the inexcusable:  (Our view:  inexcusable conduct, Florida Today editorial)

Cocoa High Principal Lori Backus, former Cocoa Assistant Principal Dino Colona and two other administrators appear to have grossly violated state education rules to get around stringent FCAT standards.

They did that by booting at least 54 ninth- and 10-graders -- mostly exceptional education students -- up to 11th grade even though the students lacked the required number of credits to be promoted, the district says.

Tenth grade is the last year in which students must take the reading and math FCAT. Those who don't pass in 10th grade may take a retest later, but their scores won't count in the formula the state uses to determine FCAT grades.

Officials believe the grade-level jiggering was a ploy to remove low-performing students from the high-stakes achievement-testing arena.  That, in turn, could have improved Cocoa High's chances of boosting its state grade, which fell last year from a C to a D.  In other words, it was cheatingÉ.

Inexcusable as the alleged actions of the Cocoa High staff may be, they also expose yet again one of the FCAT's undeniable fault lines:

The extreme pressure it places schools under when it's used as a hammer to pound in place questionable accountability standards instead of a diagnostic tool to improve learning.

Brevard first saw that strain in 2003, when three elementary school teachers were placed on administrative leave for giving too much help to students taking the test.

But the Cocoa High case -- involving respected educators with 16 to 23 years of experience in local schools -- is a much more stunning display of what can happen when too much hinges too heavily on the blunt instrument of the FCAT.

We've said before the high-stakes atmosphere of the test -- which punishes struggling schools by denying them bonus money -- is unhealthy and can ultimately harm the students who need the most help.  Until that's fixed on the state level, the district must go back and reinforce to all its staff that integrity matters more than FCAT scores.

One further aspect of the Cocoa High probe begs for attention: The fact most of the students it involved were special education kids.  Many students with disabilities simply shouldn't be judged by the same test or process as regular students.

A 2006 report by the Florida Forum for Progressive Policy found many principals, under condition of anonymity, vehemently object to current FCAT treatment of special education students and want the requirements modified.

Superintendent Richard DiPatri has said he believes what happened at Cocoa High is an absolute anomaly.  We beg to differ.

When four lifelong educators in one cluster abandon their ethics to boost an FCAT score, it's more than an anomaly.  It's a klaxon sounding the warning something's broke with the way the state tests its special education students.

If there's any redeeming aspect of this sorry cheating debacle, it will come from this:  The Department of Education will dispense with merely denouncing the grade level manipulations and undertake serious FCAT reform, in special education and elsewhere.

►  Voters got rid of the elected education commissioner in Florida to strengthen the governor's hand with public schools. To hear appointed commissioner John Winn tell it, though, the next governor will have one hand tied behind his back.  (Next governor should get say on education, St. Petersburg Times editorial)

Winn and the headstrong state Board of Education, whose members were all appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, have built a little fortress around their institutional status quo. The board was created in 2001, allowing Bush not only to appoint its seven members but to decide how to stagger their four-year terms. As a result, the next governor, Republican or Democrat, may not be able to appoint a majority until his fourth year in office.

Winn, who was previously Bush's education policy analyst, now tells people his job is safe even after Bush leaves. Says Winn: "The governor can't fire me."

Winn is right, but his smugness is unbecoming. He was appointed after no national search, no public debate, no job posting. He was appointed because Bush wanted him for the job. The board, led by Bush campaign fundraiser Phil Handy, did exactly as told. The board, in fact, always does what the governor wants. Handy often reminds them to "stay on message," and the only member who strayed from the script, Boca Raton businessman Charles Garcia, is no longer there.

Winn and Handy need not be faulted for their obedience, only their duplicity. They have repeatedly argued that voters wanted the governor to have real authority to make changes - except, apparently, when that principle is applied to the next governor.

Handy, who is famous for his successful campaign for political term limits in Florida, is now trying to extend his own stay on the board by arguing his first 18 months didn't really count. If he succeeds, he may well serve more than the eight consecutive years allowed under law. He already has served as chairman more than the four years prescribed by law.

The appointed board, which replaced the elected State Cabinet, was intended to insulate the Department of Education from wholesale political turnover when administrations change. But it never was meant to tie a future governor's hands. If Bush decides to reappoint Handy and T. Willard Fair when their terms end Dec. 31, he would be insisting the next governor stick with Winn for at least three more years. Would Bush, who campaigned as the "education governor," have gladly waited three years to pick his own commissioner? Not a chance.

The two Democrats in this year's gubernatorial race have made unrealistic claims about the changes they will make in public schools. But all four major candidates are entitled to put their own stamp on education, and Winn's gambit raises legitimate questions. Should any new governor be prevented from appointing a board majority until a fourth year in office? If Winn thinks he is unaccountable to the next governor, who really is going to run the schools?

Bush wants to secure his education legacy, but voters will elect someone other than him this fall. That governor deserves the same strong hand.

►  Like the OK Corral, the Death Star and the Lake Placid ice rink, Miami-Dade's lowest-performing high schools are becoming the sites of an epic showdown.  (Blame game topic:  failing schools, Miami Herald)

Florida Education Commissioner John Winn told The Miami Herald on Friday that Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Rudy Crew's reform efforts at Edison, Central, Jackson and Northwestern senior highs have been too small and too slow.  He said state observers would begin making regular visits to the campuses this fall, giving monthly reports to the state Board of Education and Winn himself.

If profound change does not come quickly, Winn said, he could try to withhold millions of dollars in state education funding -- an unprecedented move that Winn said could be necessary to prod the district into fundamental change.  ''It needs to look like the Marines have landed at Edison, Central and Northwestern,'' Winn said.

Those schools have been a focal point of Crew's administration since he arrived in 2004. They are all part of the School Improvement Zone, which provides for a longer school day and extended year. This fall, Edison and Central will be among the first to place all students in small, career-themed academies under the district's Secondary School Reform plan.

But progress has been slow. None of the four schools has ever received higher than a D grade from the state, and Edison is one of two in Florida to earn five consecutive F's. Only 7 percent of Edison students scored on grade level during last year's standardized reading test -- Central had 11 percent; Jackson had 12 and Northwestern 15.

Crew said Winn was disparaging and threatening the district despite having offered little advice or vision for improvement.  ''I'm not going to get into a verbal war with the commissioner over what change really looks like -- he's not on this ground,'' Crew said. In some ways, a face-off between the two men was inevitable.

Crew is an eloquent but tough-spoken former principal from New York City, a commanding presence and the gravitational center of any room.

He finds the government's love affair with standardized testing to be too narrow-minded for true education reform. And he rarely backs away from a fight -- as New York City's schools chief, he won expanded powers from the state legislature but lost his job when he refused to create the voucher program desired by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In South Florida, he has warred publicly with influential state Rep. Ralph Arza and wants to launch a broader campaign to increase state education funding to South Florida districts.

Winn is a consummate education-policy wonk, a former elementary and middle school teacher who helped develop nearly every aspect of Gov. Jeb Bush's A+ Education Plan.  Never a politician, he rose through the Department of Education to become chief of staff to the last commissioner, Jim Horne. He has a soft-spoken, down-home manner and is prone to trip over his sentences but has always shown himself as a zealous believer in the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and its growing role in public schools -- it now determines high school graduation, third-grade advancement, school grades and teacher pay.

''This is a fundamental disagreement on what does it take to improve the lives of children that are in schools that need to be improved,'' Crew said.  He said he would not fight the increased state monitoring in the four schools, but he said he had little reason to believe it would help.

But Winn said the district does need more control. He said many of the plans Crew submitted last summer for Edison and Central were implemented badly, if at all.  ''You get a plan that kind of looks good, but it's not executed,'' he said.

Both schools kept their freshmen at their middle schools, hoping to ease their transition into senior high. But Winn agreed with many vocal parents who called the plan a failure.

''There have been places where I don't think we executed very well -- I've said that publicly and taken full responsibility for it, '' said Crew, who has already announced changes to the ninth-grade program for this fall.  ``The issue becomes, how do you get out of the way and allow good teaching to be fostered in every single one of these schools?''

Crew agreed with Winn's call for a review of all the teachers and administrators at the struggling schools. Winn said he is ''not convinced'' the schools have the best possible faculty, but Crew said he has the right staff in place.

The two leaders continue to speak fairly regularly, but Crew said they never discuss the most important topics.  ''A real conversation would include a conversation about what we need to do this,'' he said.  ``There's been no such conversation about that.''

►  It's time to pull out all the stops if Superintendent Ron Blocker and the School Board are serious about improving Orange County's worst-performing high schools.  (Still too weak, Orlando Sentinel editorial)

The plan Mr. Blocker presented to the School Board on Wednesday inches further than the district has ever gone before -- but it still falls far short of what's needed.  Mr. Blocker can regain the confidence of this community by proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that every effort has been made and every resource has been tapped to help struggling readers at Jones, Evans and Oak Ridge high schools.

The best way to do this would be to extend the class day by requiring these students to attend seven classes rather than six. That seventh period should be set aside for the one-on-one tutoring that state Education Commissioner John Winn demanded weeks ago. This mandatory tutoring at the district's expense would demonstrate that Mr. Blocker and the School Board are serious about answering Mr. Winn's call to arms and, most importantly, improving the futures of these troubled students.

Unfortunately, Mr. Blocker's plan doesn't even come close to those lofty goals.

First, Mr. Blocker's proposal addresses only Jones and Evans high schools, both of which received F's on the state's school grading system. Oak Ridge, which scratched out a D, isn't addressed. It would be a mistake to focus only on this year's F schools. Since the FCAT began eight years ago, Jones and Evans have never managed better than a D, and Oak Ridge managed one C -- in 1999, the test's first year.  If Oak Ridge is not included in this plan, it is likely to slip back to an F next year.

Part of Mr. Blocker's 26-point plan for Jones and Evans is to add a seventh period to Jones and Evans for ninth and 10th grades. Those classes of up to 12 students would be intensive reading lessons. Voluntary one-on-one tutoring would be available after school.

While we applaud Mr. Blocker for finally adding the seventh period, this is hardly groundbreaking. All Orange County students need to be in class longer -- the nation's 12th-largest school district ranks near the bottom nationally in classroom time.

And it would be better for these students to have one-on-one tutoring. Mr. Blocker argues that voluntary tutoring hasn't worked in the past. So make it mandatory, require attendance and issue grades. If students don't show up, haul them in as truants and hold their parents accountable for not getting their children to class.

Mr. Blocker can find money in his $1.2 billion budget. This is a crisis. Cut travel, cut teacher training, cut technology, cut salaries. When people complain, look them in the eye and say the children of Jones, Oak Ridge and Evans come first.

If Mr. Blocker and the School Board do this they can earn the community's support and honestly say they did all they could.

►  Why is it so hard for Florida to recruit teachers? Board of Governors member J. Stanley Marshall, who was asked to find solutions to the problem, blames the union for "constantly complaining that teachers are getting a raw deal."  (Don't worry, be teachers, Palm Beach Post editorial)

What a relief. If it's just union yammering, as Mr. Marshall believes, then the Legislature doesn't have to do anything difficult, such as providing enough money to significantly raise teacher pay, which is $5,000 below the national average. And politicians won't have to stop making teachers bow down and worship the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. As Mr. Marshall sees it, to get recruits banging on the principal's door, the state just needs a few cheery and inspirational billboards and commercials to "inform the public of the important and deeply satisfying aspects of teaching."

Thank goodness it won't be necessary to try to make would-be teachers comfortable with arcane and arbitrary aspects of FCAT-based bonuses, such as how a Spanish teacher can be passed over if students at her school do poorly on the math FCAT. Come to think of it, how do teachers of physical education and history get FCAT-based bonuses when the state doesn't give an FCAT in their subjects?

Or, how can an entire school earn enough points to get a C grade from the state but, because of a complex and ever-changing formula, be stigmatized with a D? When that happened recently at John I. Leonard High School in suburban Lake Worth, it cost Principal Reginald Myers his job, even though the school was improving under his leadership and even though teachers wanted to keep him. But what do teachers know?

Fortunately, there's no time to dwell on it because, as soon as school starts in August, teachers will have to put everything else aside to begin the sprint toward FCATs in March. The state needs 32,000 teachers a year, but universities say they're having trouble finding students who want to become teachers. Here's hoping they respond to the state's new recruiting slogan: "Salary and Respect Aren't Everything."

State Universities:  Too Much Control or Too Little?

Higher education budget requests are supposed to flow from Florida's 11 public universities to the state Board of Governors to the Legislature. But the universities also have used lobbyists to get an edge. Given the politics of the Legislature, it made sense.  (Let all universities win, Palm Beach Post editorial)

This year, for example, the strategy helped deliver a promise of two new medical schools, at Florida International University and the University of Central Florida, to train doctors who may end up serving patients in other states. Before that, the approach almost brought Florida State University what would have been the nation's first chiropractic school at a public university. Before that, a legislative power play got FSU the state's last medical school, and got the Board of Regents, which opposed the school, disbanded.

That's no way to run a top-tier university system, as Florida's aspires to be. But the Legislature still controls the state's education budget. Board of Governors Chairwoman Carolyn Roberts wants to rein in a group she thinks her board can control: the university presidents. She has appointed a task force, which includes several lawyers, to help determine penalties for universities that lobby legislators for money beyond the board-approved priorities list.

Ms. Roberts' argument goes to the bottom line that if the universities' competing interests can't all be met, the state's priorities should be. Those priorities should be determined not by legislators, but by the board whose authority includes reviewing and approving programs.

Still, one could hear wills begin to clash. As The Post reported, Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan wondered, no doubt with with a smile, whether he would be sent to the woodshed if FAU got extra perks from legislators. The comment amused Ms. Roberts, who nevertheless affirmed her determination to have the presidents working as a team.

If every university got close to the money it needed, this wouldn't be a problem. But they don't, and governance of the university system ultimately is a statewide matter. Florida will be better off if the universities don't compete with each other. They face enough competition from the Legislature.

►  Good for Board of Governors Chairwoman Carolyn Roberts. She is laying down the law when it comes to the way universities behave during the legislative session.  (Getting tough on universities' greed, Tampa Tribune editorial)

Roberts is seeking to restore order to how universities get their construction projects funded, and she's proposing penalties for institutions that subvert the process with their own lobbying efforts.

A committee will study what sort of punishment would be appropriate, but penalties are needed if the university system is going to have an orderly, thoughtful system of building campuses.

The process is supposed to work like this: Universities submit projects to the Board of Governors. The board reviews them and submits them to the governor, who then asks the Legislature. The way it really works is anything but orderly.

This year the process became a free-for-all with individual universities lobbying lawmakers directly for their pet projects, with institutional allegiance and political ties trumping fiscal responsibility in some cases.

Florida must become very selective in how it builds up its universities because the financing mechanism for such projects, the Public Education Capital Outlay fund, will drop from about $1.4 billion this year to less than $400 million in 2008-09. Making decisions on what gets built in those lean years shouldn't be based on political might. It should be based on actual need.

Boot Camps Going Out of Business

One day before the Martin Lee Anderson Act's tough reforms take effect, two Florida sheriffs unexpectedly announced they're closing their boot camps today, saying the Legislature set too many expensive requirements while giving them too little to pay for them.  (Two boot camps close; one left, Miami Herald)

The decision by the Pinellas and Manatee county sheriffs means Florida will only have one boot camp -- in Polk County -- from the five that were running on Jan. 5, the day 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson was beaten by guards at a Panama City boot camp and died hours later.

Martin's death, still under investigation, led to the closure of the Bay County camp in Panama City and the creation by the Legislature of the Martin Lee Anderson Act. The act, which goes into effect Saturday, renames the camps STAR academies and calls for more medical care, better-trained staff and a ban on nonmedical use of chemical agents, such as the ammonia capsules implicated in Martin's death.

Manatee Sheriff Charlie Wells chafed at a few of the requirements -- such as giving kids instant access to an abuse hot line -- but said the deal-breaker came earlier this month when his staff determined the reforms would leave him more than $1.5 million in the hole.

''The boy's death was tragedy. But a net was thrown over all the boot camps and they were dragged in the boat,'' Wells said. ``It's a darn shame that this has to end.''

''There were two or three legislators who grandstanded and show-boated,'' he said. ``So this doesn't surprise me this happened. This [law] wasn't rationally discussed or debated. There was a lot of knee-jerk reaction.''

One of the lawmakers who first pushed for the reforms was state Sen. Frederica Wilson, a Miami Democrat. She said Wells is scapegoating the Legislature and never gave an accurate picture of what he needed.

''Some of these sheriffs probably took this personally. They resent the fact we took boot camps out,'' said Wilson, who expressed dissatisfaction that no one has been charged in Martin's death.

''I'm glad the camps are closing,'' she said. ``I think they all need to be phased out because the system they were sired under fostered a culture of violence and defiance.''

The Manatee camp -- the first of its kind in the state -- and the Panama City facility were the two worst-performing, with about half of the kids committing crimes a year after graduation. Wells said he stopped admitting kids shortly after Martin's death and decided not to renew his contract with the Department of Juvenile Justice this week.

By contrast, Martin County's camp had the lowest re-offender rate and emphasized more after-care and counseling. But Martin Sheriff Bob Crowder publicly and privately told lawmakers that they weren't spending enough on the program. As promised, Crowder closed the camp when his last kids graduated June 9.

Nine days before that, Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Martin Lee Anderson Act and hailed its reforms as well as its increase in spending, from $81 per offender per day to $100. He dismissed Crowder's criticism about money. ''The other sheriffs,'' Bush said, ``believe that it's more than adequate.''

Pinellas Sheriff Jim Coats said his staff realized this month that the camp would need $1.2 million more after reviewing the law -- and the 30-page policy-laden contract drafted by DJJ. The last kid from his camp will be taken elsewhere by DJJ today.

''It comes down to a business decision: Is it worth it for us to participate? And the answer, when we looked at it, was no,'' Coats said. He wanted $3.6 million, but the state Legislature earmarked only $2.4 million.

Coats said he tried to negotiate with DJJ for the $3.6 million. Agency chief Anthony Schembri, he said, ``was pretty clear. He said his hands were tied. End of story. So there wasn't much room to negotiate.''

Coats acknowledges he should have added up the numbers sooner and made a stronger push for money when the Legislature was considering its budget. He said he also didn't realize that the rate for after-care counseling was about 25 percent lower than he'd need.

Only Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said he'll sign the contract, while ``holding my nose.''

''What occurred with Martin Lee Anderson was tragic. And as a result, the Legislature has micromanaged the program in law,'' Judd said. ``And I understand that because they have an obligation to respond to the crisis. Then, on top of the Legislature, we've got a 30-something-page juvenile-justice contract. . . .

``The children will be better for our anguish.''

Property Insurance Woes Escalate

Harold Polsky and his wife, Barbara, moved to Port Richey, Fla., in 2002 with plans to retire. Now they find themselves in a hurricane-damaged home, spending half their income on a mortgage and skyrocketing insurance rates.  (Rising Insurance Rates Push Florida Homeowners to Brink, New York Times)

"We figured we were making the last move of our lives," said Mr. Polsky, 49, whose three-bedroom home was damaged by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. "Now we're ready to move out of state, and we shouldn't have to."

Florida is losing its luster for many residents like him, who are scouring for homeowners' insurance after two ferocious hurricane seasons and struggling to pay for what they find.

Abandoned by insurers with cold feet and empty pockets, homeowners are increasingly turning to the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, the state-created insurer of last resort, which by law must charge more than private insurers to be noncompetitive. Citizens has picked up 150,000 homeowner policies in Florida since June 2005, said Rocky Scott, a spokesman, and expects to add another 320,000 by the end of the summer.

Citizens, created in 2002 as a safety net for homeowners, is now the second-largest insurer in the state, carrying 70 percent of Miami-Dade County policies alone. This summer it anticipates becoming the largest homeowners' insurer in Florida, with 1.2 million policies.

Last year, hurricane claims put Citizens $1.73 billion in the red. The Legislature bailed out the company with $715 million from the state surplus. Homeowners are picking up the remaining tab through assessments to their policies, which in some cases are twice as expensive as last year's.

In some ways, the higher rates are forcing Florida residents to confront the real costs of living in a hurricane-prone region, and many say life in the tropics may not be worth the price.

George Myers, a mortgage broker in St. Petersburg with a modest 1,000-square-foot home built in 1947, was recently dropped by a private insurer because of his house's age. His insurance premiums have gone to $1,350, from $500, Mr. Myers said, and will more than double again by the end of the summer if another Citizens rate increase is approved.

Mr. Myers, 52, said he was planning to build a home in Virginia and move there next year.

"The worst that's going to happen there is I get cold," Mr. Myers said. "I don't see it changing or getting any better here."

Suzanne Litt Lyon, whose insurer declared bankruptcy this year, has searched relentlessly to find a new policy for her eighth-floor apartment in Miami.

"I'm in a pickle," Mrs. Litt Lyon said. "I want to have it for my peace of mind, but do we really need insurance? I just spent $8,000 for storm shutters. We live in this 1961 concrete building that's a fortress. Even if you make a claim, the deductibles are so high that you don't even really make a claim."

Private insurance rates are not much cheaper. State Farm is asking to increase its homeowners' insurance rates 74 percent on average, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Lynn Martin, a State Farm customer in Punta Gorda, said her premiums could increase to $3,000 a year, from about $2,000.

"I don't know what anyone's going to do who's a working person," said Mrs. Martin, who battened her home and survived Hurricane Charley in 2004 with relatively little damage. "Then you add in the factor of the higher cost of fuel, electricity. Where's it going to stop?"

Homeowners in some hard-hit areas have united and taken their outrage to Tallahassee, the state capital. Fair Insurance Rates in Monroe, a group formed at a backyard party in Key West, now has more than 4,000 members and successfully lobbied to have Citizens' homeowner rates in the Keys frozen at October 2005 levels until the state can review again.

Teri Johnston, president of the group, said owners of 1,500-square-foot homes there were typically seeing premiums double to $10,000 or more for wind-storm insurance. They are facing a total home insurance cost of more than $13,000 a year on average, Ms. Johnston said, or about $1,100 a month.

Their cries are being heard. Candidates in the race to succeed Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, have made homeowners' insurance a top campaign issue. In addition to bailing out Citizens, the Legislature set aside $250 million this spring to help property owners fortify their homes.

Mr. Polsky, president of another homeowners' group, said that was not enough or soon enough. His premium has doubled in the past year, and he faces another increase by summer's end that he does not think he can pay. Without homeowners' insurance, he said, he faces bank foreclosure.

"I may lose my house because of this," said Mr. Polsky, who has already boxed up much of his belongings in anticipation of a move. "If it increases like they propose, I don't know what we will do. Nobody will buy it in the shape it's in, and nobody can pay the insurance."

►  It's just 3 1/2 years old and was supposed to stay modest in size. On Saturday, however, Citizen's Property Insurance Corp., the state-sponsored insurer of last resort, will surpass State Farm to become Florida's largest insurer.  (Citizens' Not Happy To Be No. 1, Tampa Tribune)

More than 1.2 million policyholders will be covered by Citizens on July 1, almost twice as many as were covered when Citizens first started writing policies in 2003.  "This is exactly the opposite of what we wanted to happen," said Bruce Douglas, Citizens board chairman.

On Saturday, Citizens will be assuming 330,000 policyholders from the insolvent Poe Financial Group. The Poe problem pushes Citizens' policy count ahead of State Farm Florida Insurance Co.'s 941,000 policies.

Other policyholders have been forced into Citizens because of a meltdown in Florida's homeowners insurance market. Citizens gets 50,000 applicants a month, Douglas said. At the same time, he said, private insurers that had agreed to assume Citizens policies have stopped doing so.  He said Citizens likely will reach 1.5 million policyholders by the end of the year.

A growing Citizens could be bad for every homeowner insurance policyholder in Florida because the more policies the company assumes, the more financial risk it takes on.

Despite changes enacted by the Florida Legislature this year, policyholders throughout Florida will be on the hook if Citizens has major losses.

If Citizens has losses above about $2 billion, its part-time resident policyholders will be assessed first, then its year-round residents will be assessed and, finally, non-Citizens policyholders.

Citizens lost more than $2 billion in 2004 and 2005, and taxpayers and insurance policyholders are picking up the tab.

Citizen's policyholders, meanwhile, are stuck with the highest rates in the state. Those rates could double in the next several years as Citizens charges higher rates to build reserves for future hurricanes claims.

Douglas said Citizens enters the 2006 storm season with $5 billion in reserves, a strong financial position - "except if there's a major hurricane."

But $3 billion of the $5 billion comes from a bond issue that would have to be repaid if the fund is tapped.

The insurer estimates that a major storm such as a Wilma-size hurricane could cost the company $7.7 billion in damage to coastal property. Those policyholders represent less than half of Citizens' covered properties. Those estimates were factored before Citizens absorbed the policies from Poe Financial Group.

Overall, Citizens is insuring property worth more than $387.6 billion.

The bottom line is that Citizens is insuring too many high-risk properties, said Bob Hartwig, an economist with the insurance industry-funded Insurance Information Institute.  "It's absolutely unavoidable with this current strategy that Citizens will go broke," he said. "It's like investing 100 percent of your portfolio in junk bonds; Citizens can't do it."

Hartwig blamed the state Office of Insurance Regulation for sitting on and denying rate increases requested by insurance companies. He said if insurers, including Citizens, had been allowed to charge the necessary rates, then private insurers would not be reluctant to do business in Florida.

But Bob Lotane, a spokesman for the Office of Insurance Regulation, said, "Under Kevin McCarthy, there has been no rate suppression."  Insurance Commissioner McCarthy is appointed, not elected, Lotane said, and has judged rate increase applications on their merits.  Lotane said the insurance crisis is the result of Florida's past eight hurricanes and a shortage of reinsurance for insurance companies.

►  The math looks bad for Floridians. With five months still to go in the hurricane season, meteorologists are holding to predictions of perhaps six major hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.  (Government inaction, Orlando Sentinel editorial)

Factor in an insurance industry charging many of its policy holders more than twice what it did a year ago for lesser coverage, and it adds up to Floridians potentially filing enormous claims but getting little back in return.

State officials could improve the situation. They did so after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, imposing building codes that toughened homes and businesses against the destructive force of future storms. Those regulations consequently corralled runaway insurance premiums.

Expanding the code's reach now could have the same effect, as could offering Floridians incentives to fortify their new or existing homes. Out-of-sight rates for lesser coverage being offered policy holders this year come, after all, in the wake of mountainous payouts by the industry following the eight hurricanes that battered the state in the past two years.

But officials inexcusably are fiddling or sitting on their hands. The state Building Commission in June could have signaled to insurers its intention to help reduce the likelihood of future claims by expanding the code to include the Panhandle, most of it unfairly excluded from wind-proofing standards imposed on the rest of the state. The commission instead proposed extending it to just two northwest counties, insisting winds there don't require more -- never mind the $1.4 billion in federal and state assistance paid to that region following Hurricane Ivan. And never mind that trees modulating winds there likely won't do so indefinitely, as development there moves inland.

Sensible legislation from Sen. Steven Geller of Hallandale Beach would encourage homeowners to strengthen their houses with storm shutters and impact-resistant glazing by not having the upgrades increase the assessed value of homestead property. But Mr. Geller in the last legislative session couldn't find a sponsor for his bill in the House.

Floridians thus would do well to strengthen their homes -- and lower their premiums in the process -- without waiting on government officials lending them a hand. Investing $20,000 to $30,000 on reinforced walls, roofs and even hurricane-resistant "safe" rooms that exceed code standards could earn homeowners 25 percent discounts in their homeowners premiums. One development exclusively featuring such homes is rising in Lake County. Prices start at $200,000.

Florida almost certainly will be seeing far more of them. Officials may not see any particular urgency in getting significantly more residents to strengthen their homes. But Floridians, learning what fortifying their homes can do to their premiums, will.

Oil Drilling Edges Closer to Florida

The House voted by a wide margin Thursday to allow oil and gas drilling as close as 50 miles off the nation's coastline, splitting a once-united Florida congressional delegation, most of whom voted to lift the historic ban that now protects coastal waters.  (House votes for drilling near coast, Miami Herald)

Florida members who sided with the proposal argued that it may be the best the state can do, because bans protecting the coastline begin to expire next year and the state is losing leverage in its efforts to keep rigs from its shores.

The bill passed 232 to 187. Fourteen of Florida's 25 House members voted in favor. Miami Republican Reps. Mario and Lincoln D’az-Balart were the only South Florida House members who supported it.

''This is not a perfect bill, but it gives Florida protections she does not now enjoy,'' said Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow.

Critics assailed the bill as a giveaway to the oil industry and a threat to the fragile coastline, but backers portrayed it as key to capping rising energy costs.

''We're not backing down and we're not backing off,'' warned Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, criticizing what he called an ''environmental Taliban'' for blocking access to the Outer Continental Shelf. Still, the bill faces hurdles in the Senate, where Florida's senators have vowed to push for greater protection. And the White House has warned that revenue sharing in the bill could further bust the federal deficit.

Critics accused proponents of looking to ''bribe'' states with promises of revenue-sharing, but lawmakers from drill-friendly coastal states like Louisiana argued that the states deserve reimbursement.

The oil and gas industry has long pushed for the opportunity to explore what it sees as gas-rich pockets of the Gulf of Mexico. But opponents said drilling could spoil Florida's beaches and that increasing fuel-efficiency standards would do more to lower gasoline prices.

''Our beaches, our coastline [are] critical to who we are as Floridians,'' said Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa.

The Floridians scored one victory: Drilling would be prohibited in the Gulf of Mexico east of the Military Mission Line that extends as far as 235 miles off the state's west coast. But the delegation failed to secure a second amendment to extend the bill's 100 mile no-drill buffer to 125 miles around the rest of the state. The amendment, which lost by a 65 to 353 vote, also would have lifted the requirement that states must act to oppose drilling closer to their shores. Under the House bill, the state Legislature must vote every five years to prevent drilling closer than 50 miles.

Gov. Jeb Bush said he's comfortable with the legislation and that he'd call a special session in November if the bill passed to establish a maximum drilling distance.'' But many Florida members said they couldn't support the legislation without both amendments -- choosing to take their chances with the Senate.

''Oil wells just got a lot closer to Florida's beaches with today's vote,'' said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Lake Worth. ``I am disappointed with the results but hold out for the Senate to stand up for our state's beaches and economy.''

The issue galvanized the once-united delegation and the failure of the amendment prompted enough talk among the Florida members that the presiding House speaker admonished them to be quiet.

The delegation's split evolved as pressure to drill mounted. Some argued it was time for the state to compromise or face greater encroachment. Others believed that a unified delegation -- the fourth largest in the House -- could fend off advances.

The legislation could face challenges in a Senate that supports limited drilling, but Senate Energy & Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici hailed the House bill. Domenici's compromise l would open the Gulf to drilling but impose a 100-mile buffer.

Florida's two senators, Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson, have proposed limited oil drilling in exchange for a buffer 260 miles from much of Florida's Gulf coast and 150 miles off Pensacola.

►  Adam Putnam, Florida's youngest and highest-ranking U.S. representative, was exasperated. A historic vote on opening the nation's coasts to oil and natural gas drilling was just 48 hours away, and his Florida colleagues were squabbling like seagulls over bread crumbs.  (How any chance of an oil deal died, St. Petersburg Times)

He rubbed his face with his hands, then leaned back into the conference table in a Capitol meeting room and eyed his colleagues one more time.

Time is running out, he said. Florida is going to get rolled. What is it that you want?

Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, said compromising was foolish; Florida would beat this the way it always had. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, reminded the others of his own proposal, giving Florida 260 miles of buffer on the West coast and 150 miles everywhere else. A great deal, but politically dead.

Some urged their colleagues to take the deal Putnam had negotiated to keep drilling as much as 100 miles off the coast. Others wanted to wait and hear from Florida's two U.S. senators.

The buzzer rang to announce a round of votes on the House floor, and the members filtered out.

"So where are we?" Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said as her colleagues left. "We're all getting up and walking away?"

Pretty much, yes.

Florida's congressional delegation knew for months that House leaders were bent on opening more of the nation's outercontinental shelf to drilling, and rising gas prices were providing momentum. But as a group, the delegation misread the strength of its opposition and didn't get serious about trying to mitigate the threat until it was too late.

Last week, the House passed the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act, which would allow rigs as close as 50 miles offshore, while giving states the option of voting to keep it as far as 100 miles offshore or as close as 3 miles.

Lawmakers and aides involved in crafting the bill, which passed easily with bipartisan support, say the Florida delegation's inability to find consensus and articulate a plausible compromise - until the last minute - sapped their bargaining power.

It also ensured that, in the absence of an affirmative plan from Florida, the rest of the House was happy to create one for them.

"If you had a proposal from them six months ago, it would have changed the debate," said House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., who led the bill to passage. "But where we are right now, this is the best deal I can get Florida.  Florida's position is, 'We don't want anything.' That is not an option."

The drive for a deal on offshore drilling began last summer, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita crippled oil and gas operations in the central and western gulf and supplies got tight.

Believing that drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico was only a matter of time, two Floridians on the House energy committee, Reps. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, and Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, began negotiating then with Pombo for a deal that would open much of the gulf to drilling, in exchange for permanent protections.

In November, after months of back and forth, Pombo tried to include it on a budget bill. The deal was generous by today's standards: Drilling would be prohibited within 125 miles of the coast, unless the state Legislature agreed to permit it closer.  Gov. Jeb Bush supported the deal, as did a sizeable portion of the state's congressional delegation.

But several Floridians, led by Davis, who is running for governor, and Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, who has a tough re-election fight, opposed it, as did several fellow Republicans. Some thought 125 miles was too close; others worried about giving the state Legislature the power to permit drilling even closer.

House leaders couldn't risk losing votes on the budget bill, so they yanked the oil deal.  The Floridians would never get it back.

In the months since that first proposal - known within the delegation as Pombo I - the political atmosphere for an amicable ending only got worse.  Gas prices remain near $3 a gallon. Experts say drilling off Florida will do nothing to ease prices, but Congress was eager to show it was trying to ease the energy crunch.

Manufacturing, labor, agribusiness and chemicalmakers, along with the oil and gas lobby, were pushing for more access to the continental shelf, telling lawmakers that high natural gas prices were costing the U.S. jobs and hurting farmers.

In May, members from Florida, California and other coastal states barely defeated an attempt to allow natural gas drilling as close as 3 miles from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and 9 miles from Florida's gulf coast.

Florida members declared it a wakeup call, but until last week's vote was at hand, few were willing to declare support for a politically realistic buffer.

Dan Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida who follows the delegation, said members were in a slippery spot: Agree to limited drilling and face charges they compromised on a fundamental value for the state, or resist any compromise and, as a result, get even less.

"The public opinion in Florida is we don't want any drilling, 150 miles or 100 miles, and the public opinion is pretty strong on this," Smith said.

Pro-drilling lawmakers said the Florida delegation's quandary was apparent. "No one wanted to say, 'Okay, 125, 150,' or whatever," Pombo said. "They would have been criticized. Unfortunately, some of the ones who were the biggest critics never engaged at all."

These included Davis, a hardliner on drilling who had proposed a bill identical to the one Florida Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez had offered in the Senate: Keep drilling 260 miles off the West coast and 150 miles off the Panhandle and Atlantic coasts, with no provisions for the Florida Legislature to allow drilling any closer.

No Republicans signed onto it, which Democrats and environmental lobbyists blamed on their unwillingness to aide Davis' gubernatorial campaign. It never had a chance of passing the House, but some say the delegation should have used it as a starting point for dealing with Pombo.

"We could have done it more forcefully," said Athan Manuel, director of lands programs for the Sierra Club. "When you're dealing with someone like Pombo and (others) who are fire-breathers and true believers on this stuff, you've got to have unanimity."

Resources committee members who negotiated the drilling deal said Florida would have had far more leverage had its delegation been able to promise a block of 15 or so votes early in the process. But the Floridians were voicing a range of concerns.

Some were most interested in protecting the military training areas. Others wanted more distance between rigs and the shore. And the delegation was at odds on whether state legislatures should have any power to decide the future.

"If somebody could have authoritatively spoken (for Florida's members), or the delegation would say, 'This is where what we're willing to do,' absolutely that would have been effective," said Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-La., who helped craft the bill. "You're always better off when you're at the table."

Putnam, the fifth-ranking House Republican, began negotiating with Pombo in May after House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., put him in charge of bringing energy legislation to the floor by the end of June.

Although Putnam kept in touch with Florida Republicans, and interest in reaching a deal had grown, many were unhappy with what emerged.

The buffer would be 100 miles unless a state legislature voted to permit drilling 50 miles out. As an incentive, those that allowed it inside 100 miles would get 50 to 75 percent of the royalties energy companies pay for drilling rights, which could total billions of dollars.

The delegation met first to discuss the deal on Tuesday, but reached no consensus on a counteroffer. They met again Wednesday with Nelson and Martinez, who expressed disdain for the House bill and vowed to do better in the Senate.

But by then, co-sponsors of the new Pombo bill were predicting easy passage in House. Whatever edge Florida once had was gone.

Some, including Davis, were content to yield almost nothing. If they failed to beat the Pombo bill, they would leave the fight to the Senate. Others wanted to trade their votes for whatever final concessions they could.

The bill's sponsors didn't need Florida's votes to win, but they wanted big numbers to send a strong message to the Senate that it's time to loosen restrictions on offshore drilling.

"I think everybody at this table would rather not be supportive of what they've come up with. But is that realistic? Will it be all or nothing?" Bilirakis told his colleagues at the meeting. "I don't want to cast a vote for any drilling off the coast, but where are we?"

When the second meeting adjourned Wednesday afternoon, the Floridians sent Putnam back to the Republican leadership with two proposals:

The first would ban drilling in the Navy and Air Force training zone in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which extends 234 miles off Tampa Bay and runs from the Panhandle to the Keys.

Pombo agreed. The bill already called for allowing the Defense Department to veto drilling projects in that area, and the military zone does not include most of Lease Sale Area 181, a gas-rich patch of gulf that energy companies have coveted for years.

It was a big victory for the Floridians, but there is no guarantee this provision will survive. Senate leaders have opposed blocking the training zone to drilling, saying the secretaries of defense and interior should be able to work it out themselves.

The second request was essentially the deal the Floridians rejected back in November: A 125-mile drilling buffer, with no state action needed to keep it intact.

Pombo opposed that one, but he agreed to offer it as an amendment to the drilling bill, knowing what would happen. It failed spectacularly, by almost 190 votes.

When the voting on the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act was finished Thursday night, it had passed with a whopping 232 votes, including 40 Democrats and 14 Floridians, most lured by the protections afforded by the military training zone.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, hailed the passage Friday, and said he's working on his own offshore drilling proposal he hopes to pass this month. Florida's senators have more procedural power to block an onerous bill than their colleagues in the House, but Domenici's sights are set squarely on the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

If a bill passes the Senate, it must be reconciled with the House version, then sent back to each chamber for final approval, and one more shot at finding consensus.

►  It's now up to the U.S. Senate to reject a plan to allow oil and gas rigs as close as 50 miles to Florida's precious coastline, where spills could damage the state's environment, spoil its beaches and threaten the tourist-based economy.  (Too close to drill, Orlando Sentinel editorial)

That said, Florida's U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez can find compromise here. The bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday got it half right -- and half terribly wrong.

It's good that the bill by U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo of California would shift the decision-making for offshore drilling to the states. But the bill has it all wrong when it allows rigs as close as 50 miles. The state should be able to keep rigs 125 miles from its shores.

Another bad part of Mr. Pombo's proposal would require lawmakers to vote every five years to keep rigs at that safer distance. If the Legislature failed to act, the buffer would immediately default to the 50-mile limit. That's backward. Lawmakers should have to vote to move rigs closer, not to keep them away.

The important thing for Mr. Martinez and Mr. Nelson to remember is the ultimate goal of shifting control of offshore drilling away from Washington politicians. Environmentalists worry that giving the Legislature power to set limits on drilling off Florida's coast will only make it simpler for energy companies to peddle influence.

They argue it is easier for oil and gas companies to buy favor with 160 state legislators than 535 members of Congress. It is troubling that between 1999 and 2004 these special interests pumped more than $834,000 to Florida's Republican and Democratic parties -- most of it to the dominant GOP.

That argument, though, ignores key political realities. Logic dictates that Florida's coastline is best left in the hands of Floridians.

Yes, Florida's Legislature is few in number compared with Congress. But legislators and the governor know their actions will be judged by Florida voters. It is in their political interest to be concerned about the environment and protecting the state's vital tourist industry.

Members of Congress from Montana or Oregon don't have a stake in Florida's tourist industry. Nebraskans and Oklahomans are far less likely to appreciate the importance of the state's unspoiled coast, not just to the abundant species of wildlife, but for the beautiful beaches that help feed a $57-billion-a-year tourist industry.

Floridians understand this.

Washington isn't exactly a shining city on a hill when it comes to ethics. Florida lawmakers are banned from accepting even a sandwich from a lobbyist, much less a free trip. The most strict ethics law in the country requires lobbyists in Florida to disclose their income, who paid them and how much.

Members of Congress aren't even close to adopting such a strict standard. This debate is vital to the future of Florida. It should be a debate for Floridians to decide.

►  Prohibitions against offshore drilling that had protected the Florida coast for more than 20 years were tossed aside by the U.S. House Thursday night after a loud, dishonest debate.  (A good drilling deal, St. Petersburg Times editorial)  Yet when the smoke cleared, Florida found itself in a better position than expected. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, a Pinellas County Republican, and two colleagues succeeded in a last-minute effort to push the no-drilling line to 235 miles off west coast beaches.

That important partial victory in what could have been a night of unqualified defeat shows why it's important not to give up the fight too early. Gov. Jeb Bush and some of the state's Republican delegation already had capitulated on a bill being pushed by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., that otherwise allows drilling within 50 miles of the nation's shores. The bill lets state legislatures seek an additional 50-mile exemption, a request that would have to be repeated every five years. That would be no sure thing in Florida, where too many state lawmakers are beholden to special interests and a power-hungry business lobby already is clamoring for more drilling.

Picking up on an argument first advanced by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Young and Reps. Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, and Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, successfully introduced an amendment extending the drilling ban to the Military Mission Line in the gulf, which runs south starting near Fort Walton Beach in the Panhandle. The amended bill gives permanent protection to any waters east of that line - an area used by the military for practice missions involving airplanes, ships and submarines. That would put drilling no closer than 235 miles to Pinellas County beaches, a much more reasonable distance.

While the gulf coast can breath a sigh of relief, the bill is still a threat to Florida's east coast and other coastal states that opposed it. Typical of their responses was that of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who called the House vote "an alarming development" that will "weaken California's protections from any new oil and gas leasing." That's a tough stand that Floridians should have expected from their own governor.

The level of political rhetoric was also disappointing. Many backers of the bill implied that more drilling will reduce gasoline prices. It won't, because there aren't enough oil reserves in the entire country to make a significant impact, particularly given growing worldwide consumption.

Another false promise is that offshore drilling is safe for the environment. Some lawmakers even boasted that Hurricane Katrina caused no oil spills. That's a lie. While there was no major offshore leakage as there was in a prior storm, Katrina damaged more than 100 drilling rigs and released at least 9-million gallons of oil into the environment, mostly on land, making it nearly as big a catastrophe as the Exxon Valdez spill. To those afflicted, it probably didn't matter whether the threat came from an offshore rig, underwater pipeline, barge or storage facility.

The only way America can make real headway against our increasing need for foreign oil is through greater fuel efficiency and development of alternative fuels. Both of those issues were an afterthought in the House debate. Make no mistake. This bill was motivated by one thing: money. The oil industry is seeking even bigger profits and the state more generous drilling royalties. On that last point, even President Bush balked, warning that the bill's giveaway of royalties that usually go to the U.S. Treasury would deepen the federal deficit.

Credit Young for cutting the best deal the state has gotten so far. His reputation as a defender of Florida's beaches and tourist industry is intact. For more than two decades he wrangled yearly protection against offshore drilling, and he correctly noted that the political tide had turned toward drilling.

"Permanence is important," Young said, and under the final House bill Florida's Gulf Coast would get permanent protection to the Military Mission Line.

As the debate moves to the Senate, Nelson and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez have vowed to continue the fight. Floridians will be counting on them, because they can't count on the governor to push for a better deal. There will be many hurdles ahead, but at least the senators know the bottom line. Start by giving up no more than the House bill, and try to do even better.

Florida Policy Notes

►  In a crushing blow to Central Florida political leaders, Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed legislation Tuesday that would have allowed voters to approve a $2-a-day rental-car surcharge to pay for roads, buses and other transportation needs.  (Bush veto dashes hope of transportation relief, Orlando Sentinel)  Bush had been lobbied heavily by Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty and state House and Senate Republican Leaders Rep. Andy Gardiner of Orlando and Sen. Daniel Webster of Winter Garden, who said the extra fee would have raised up to $40 million a year, much of it coming from tourists.  But in striking down the legislation approved overwhelmingly by usually tax-wary Republican lawmakers, the GOP governor said the approach allowed for "taxation without representation."  "The money is needed," Bush said. "Transportation issues are needed. But in my eighth year in office, this was not a year I was going to break what I consider a pretty bedrock principle."  Crotty and other Orlando-area officials were stung by the veto. But they acknowledged that Bush had been a hard sell for weeks, despite earlier having expressed support for letting voters decide the issue. "It's been real nip and tuck," Crotty said.  But Orange County Commissioner Bill Segal, a Democrat, blasted Bush, saying, "The governor has failed the citizens of Orange County."  "The citizens -- not the governor and the rental-car industry -- should have been allowed to choose their taxation rates," Segal said. "Orange County citizens should be outraged."

►  Gov. Jeb Bush has used his recently revived nonprofit foundation to pay a former campaign finance director and two former campaign aides.  (Governor's nonprofit has paid pollster, former campaign finance chief, Palm Beach Post)  Although Bush has said his Foundation for Florida's Future is not a way of keeping his political machine intact after he leaves office early next year, recent disclosures on the foundation's Web site show that it paid:  Nearly $99,000 to Ann Herberger, Bush's campaign finance director during two campaign and a longtime political fund-raiser for his family.  ¥ Nearly $70,000 to Neil Newhouse of Washington-based GOP Public Opinion Strategies group for polling last October.  ¥ $48,000 for "management services" to a lobbying and public-affairs firm whose staff includes Mandy Clark and Mandy Fletcher. Both worked on Bush's reelection campaign and on his brother's presidential reelection campaign.  ¥ $23,500 for "legal services" from the Washington law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs.  ¥ $20,000 in February to GOP political strategist Adam Goodman's The Victory Group Inc.  The foundation has spent about $320,000 of the $1.9 million it has raised since Bush revived it in the fall, according to its Web site. Those contributions have come from friends, former colleagues and campaign contributors, and even the prime minister of HaitiÉ.But when asked about the subject of the $70,000 poll, Bush said, "I'm not going to tell you."  Bush had said he resurrected the foundation to campaign for a constitutional amendment to allow the state to pay for private- and religious-school tuition for children in failing schools, but lawmakers failed to pass a joint resolution that would have put such a question on the ballot in November.  Although Bush has said he will not seek public office in 2008, political strategists say the foundation will keep him from fading out of sight.