http://www.afscme.org/Private agencies get mixed review
By DEBORAH CIRCELLI
Daytona Beach News Journal
January 16, 2005
Financial difficulties, high staff turnover, poor performance, lax supervision. Those words have a familiar ring in Volusia and Flagler counties' foster care system. But in this case they apply to two counties southwest of here that switched child welfare services from the state to a private provider in 2000, about a year before Volusia and Flagler moved to a similar system. Those problems are partly why a contract with a private agency in Pinellas and Pasco counties was terminated early last year and the state asked a more experienced, community-based care agency in Sarasota to take over operations. Community Based Care of Volusia and Flagler Counties is not alone in receiving warnings from the state Department of Children & Families. Many child experts say the road to handing over the state's most vulnerable children to private agencies has not been as smooth as they had envisioned.
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GOP joins chorus of critics on privatizing
By JONI JAMES
St. Petersburg Times (FL)
January 27, 2005
Ongoing problems in the state's new payroll system are accomplishing what years of complaints by state employee unions and Democrats could not: Republican resistance to the idea of privatizing state government. Six years after Gov. Jeb Bush began his push to outsource government services to shrink state employee rolls, Republican legislative leaders are starting to push back, saying the trend often has led to questionable decisions and lax oversight.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/27/State/GOP_joins_chorus_of_c.shtml--
Memo to Convergys; What seems to be the problem?
6 February 2005
The Tallahassee Democrat
Gov. Jeb Bush saluted his new Department of Management Services interim chief, Robert Hosay, as an "accomplished contract attorney whose significant experience in state purchasing and large-scale procurements will continue to serve the department well." What most state employees probably would rather know is whether Mr. Hosay is equally able to grasp small-scale problems: for example, the abrupt and accidental insurance cancellation of a longtime state employee with an illness, which may be terminal. He is now struggling to not only get well, but also get his health insurance restored. Sen. Al Lawson's Tallahassee district gives him intimate understanding of state employees' frustrations with paychecks and benefits that the new Convergys Corp. management system controls. He expressed justified skepticism, tinged with outrage, last week at Mr. Hosay's appointment, questioning whether he will be looking out "for the interests of the state and its workers, and not the interest of Convergys."
http://www.afscme.org/private/update/pw050208.htm-----
Audit: 2 prison vendors overpaid
The report targets a disbanded board's relationship with the firms that run the state's private prisons.
By JONI JAMES
Published July 27, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - A harsh new state audit discloses that Florida overpaid nearly $13-million to two private prison vendors in the past eight years.
Among the findings were that the state paid for unfilled jobs and a vendor received money for facility maintenance that was never spent.
Nonetheless, the two companies that run the state's five private prisons remain on the job.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/27/State/Audit__2_prison_vendo.shtml--
67 schools haven't answered voucher survey
By Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003
Fla. voucher programs
Continuing coverage
from The Palm Beach Post
• Archive of past stories
One of the state's first attempts at accountability for its three voucher programs has produced a list of private schools taking tax-financed vouchers that some are calling inaccurate and others confusing.
The list shows that 67 private schools have yet to answer a state questionnaire aimed at increasing accountability on the loosely monitored voucher programs, including former Education Secretary William Bennett's Internet-based James Madison K12 Academy.
But some schools, citing increasing government interference, decided against taking vouchers this year and didn't fill out the form. Others said they didn't know anything about the questionnaire -- despite media attention, and letters from the state warning that failure to comply would mean the loss of voucher money.
Administrators from one school said they had so much trouble with the online form that they didn't turn their questionnaire in until last week -- nearly a month past an Oct. 1 deadline set by the Department of Education.
The state is requiring private schools that take vouchers to fill out the questionnaire because it did not have an accurate list of participating schools, or know whether the schools complied with all Florida laws or what kind of programs they offered.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/vouchers/vouchers1105.html--
Dereliction of Duty
Florida's Failed Education Policy
A Report by People For the American Way, February 2004
Education is a fundamental value of the people of Florida, whose state constitution even calls for a “high-quality system of free public schools.” But rather than live up to this commitment, the state—led by Governor Jeb Bush and a Republican legislature—has embarked on a series of programs that undermine public education.
Florida’s Department of Education has invested heavily in privatizing education through voucher and tuition tax credit schemes, and by funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into homeschooling without oversight or accountability. On the other hand, the state has inflexible and often punitive accountability policies for its public schools, such as high-stakes testing that as one state senator puts it, “are doing more harm than good in an effort to ‘leave no child behind.’” Rather than investing critical resources in public schools or proven reforms such as class size reduction, the state has rushed to embrace unproven privatization. Even the state’s employee pension fund, which includes the earnings of education employees, has been invested in a failing company that is in the business of privatizing education.
As this report demonstrates, the state of Florida is pursuing irresponsible education policies and using taxpayer dollars to the detriment of public education. Rather than investing in public education for every child, Florida is investing millions for a handful of students in untested private programs, contrary to the will of its people and the requirements of its constitution.
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=13553&print=yes&units=all--
June 21, 2003
Bill Moyers NOW: Jeb Bush, St. Joe and the Florida Panhandle
First stop, Florida, where Jeb Bush has been misusing his influence as governor to assist the St. Joe company in using American tax dollars to fund the overzealous development and premature demise of the Florida panhandle.
St. Joe Company is the largest landowner in Florida. Over the last few years, St. Joe has been making the transition from a lumber company to a major land developer. According to the Bill Moyers segment, St. Joe is undertaking so many projects at one time, there aren't enough State and Federal agency staff in existence to properly oversee the projects. Florida's solution thus far has been to proceed with the development without the proper oversight. This approach, of course, has many obvious disadvantages.
It's a bad enough situation that this company is developing the Florida Panhandle's wilderness at such an alarming rate, and with no supervision, but one would hope, at the very least, that the company is paying for such development on its own. Guess again. Thanks to Jeb Bush, state and federal money is being earmarked to fund a new airport, roads and other private developments that will benefit no one but the St. Joe corporation.
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/byebye_jeb/--
02/07/06
Oversight
Efficiency debate begins anew
When Gov. Jeb Bush took office in 1999, he made no bones about his goal to reduce the size of state government. As Democrat Political Editor Bill Cotterell reported Sunday, the numbers of state workers in every major personnel category has declined moderately in the past seven years.
Mr. Bush has aggressively promoted outsourcing as a strategy to limit the growth of government and improve efficiency. The size of the work force is easy to measure; the jury is still out on whether the smaller work force is also more efficient.
Two things are clear, though:
Privatization is not a passing fad. It didn't begin with Jeb Bush and it won't fade away when the governor leaves office in a year, regardless of who succeeds him.
One of this administration's biggest failures has been inadequate oversight of outsourced private contracts.
http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060207/OPINION01/602070302/1006/OPINION-----------------
I could go on - Entering "jeb lax oversight of state contracts" into the search field in Google produced 'about 26,800 results'... but let's just leave it at
john ellis bush is doing a heckuva job.
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