NEWS

Five policy challenges facing the next governor of Florida

James Call
Tallahassee Democrat
The Florida Capitol, caught in a time-lapse photo of Apalachee Parkway traffic at night.

As soon as he declares victory, the new governor must quickly get to work. He has two months to assemble a team before he takes office to face a gauntlet of challenges in leading the nation's third largest state and its 22 million residents.

Once the 46th governor of the State of Florida takes the oath of office, Jan. 8, he has three weeks to write a state budget proposal for a legislative session that begins on March 5.

The current budget is $89 billion. But sitting on the desk awaiting the new chief executive are five big-ticket items that are likely to drive his first spending priorities and define the 2019 legislative session.

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The Big 5

The next governor's to-do list includes addressing a water pollution crisis, a violence-ridden, underfunded state prison industrial complex, a besieged public education system, and a dispirited state workforce as he tries to get the job done. And at the top of the agenda is rebuilding a wide swath of the Panhandle after Hurricane Michael did billions of dollars of damage to private property, infrastructure and farmland.

1. Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael decimated an eight-county swath of the Panhandle. The third-strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. nearly wiped Mexico Beach off the map, destroyed Tyndall Air Force Base, and left Marianna unrecognizable to life-long residents.

The cotton crop and vast stands of timber were erased by Michael's Cat 4 winds. Docks were left twisted and mangled. The fabric of society stretched to the seams – Bay County schools were closed for three weeks, students were welcomed back Election Day eve.

►Take an interactive tour along the path of the worst hurricane to hit the Panhandle and Big Bend in generations.

Some damage estimates exceed $10 billion.

The rebuilding will most likely take more than four years. Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, wants a special session this month to deal with the recovery. One of the first things expected of the new governor is to take a leadership role and form a task force to develop a plan forward.

That could very well be complicated by the next four items waiting for Florida’s 46th governor.

2.  State workers

The 97,502 workers who remain in the State Personnel System have consistently lost ground since Jeb Bush left town in 2006. Inflation alone has eaten about six weeks of their annual pay since 2010.

People leave the Collins Building the office of the attorney general and department of legal affairs on Friday afternoon. The downtown building is one of many that houses state employees who are under budget restrictions enacted by Gov. Scott that will prevent pay increases for another year.

The state has a reputation for being a cheap boss – it has the fewest and least expensive state workforce in the nation and as of late, according to AFSCME stewards, a hard time filling vacant positions.

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“It’s like we’re just machines. Employees are being burned out,” said Ketha Otis, a Department of Education rehab technician. “We need somebody to come in and take a new perspective and change the atmosphere, change the environment.”

3. Florida prisons

With 24,000 employees, the Department of Corrections is the largest state agency. FDC is plagued with violence and corruption, according to inmates, their relatives and published reports.

Florida Department of Corrections logo

Strife and violence:

Florida went on a crime-fighting spree 20 years ago, created a host of new felonies, imposed mandatory minimum sentences and did away with parole. Today there are more than 97,000 inmates in prisons, they serve prison sentences 38 percent longer than the national average. FDC’s $2.3 billion budget is insufficient to pay the bills to keep them behind bars.

When the Legislature short-changed FDC’s budget request by $28 million, inmate health care and transitional programs felt the pinch.

Advocates of criminal justice reform say the state has lagged behind many of its Southern neighbors by clinging to disproven law enforcement policies. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center and others said lawmakers “have turned a blind eye to Florida’s excessive incarceration policies and the financial strain resulting from over incarceration."

In the first three weeks of October, FDC reported 34 incidents of inmates attacking staff and the arrest of one officer for assault of a cuffed and shackled inmate.

4. Water policy

Gov. Rick Scott made job creation his top priority. To that end, the two-term governor and the GOP Legislature dismantled the Department of Community Affairs and the Growth Management Act of 1985, which required the environmental review of major developments.

Then they slashed $700 million from the water management districts budgets. The series of water monitors along the coasts and Everglades dropped from 350 to 115.

The state Department of Environmental Protection, long accused of interference in local affairs, took a lighter touch on regulatory affairs.

Florida’s once crystal-clear springs are fouled with algae and the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie river systems have at times been flooded with bright-green guacamole-looking water. Red tide algae bloom plagues the state's coastline and threatens Florida's crucial tourism industry. 

5. Education

What began as a Jeb Bush-era initiative to infuse innovation into education has morphed into a for-profit-system built and maintained with taxpayers’ dollars at the expense of public schools, according to parents, the teachers’ union and their political allies.

In the past two years, the Legislature has approved and Gov. Scott signed bills that expanded tax-funded private school scholarship programs, mandated that for-profit charter schools are eligible for locally-raised building and maintenance money, created a School of Hope program to direct more money to charter schools and imposed new regulations on teachers’ unions.

Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com.