Rick Scott is fixing FLorida, slowly.

redrumloa

redrumloa

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Unemployment in South Florida drops to lowest levels in 2 years

Miami-Dade’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped from 12.2 percent in August to 11.5 percent in September, its lowest level since November 2009. The numbers behind the change moved in the right direction, too: the number of people either working or looking for work increased, suggesting optimism, and the number of people describing themselves as employed grew, too.

That sort of seasonally adjusted detail wasn’t available for Broward in the employment report that Florida released Friday morning, but the raw numbers for the smaller county showed improvement. Unemployment inched down from 9.5 percent to 9.3 percent, thanks to employment expanding faster than the labor pool. It was the lowest raw unemployment rate for Broward since May 2009.
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Statewide, the numbers looked more encouraging. Florida added 23,000 jobs in September, the second largest monthly gain since May. The boost reversed a stretch of three weak months for the Sunshine State amid a summer that brought a wave of financial anxiety around the globe as the United States and Europe grapple with debt crises.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott was pleased enough with the results to announce them from his trip to Brazil, where the Republican is promoting trade and tourism.
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Red didn't you tell us about the mass exodus out of Florida? If so those without jobs likely left. Then the improvements aren't more jobs. It's less people.
 
faethor said:
Red didn't you tell us about the mass exodus out of Florida? If so those without jobs likely left. Then the improvements aren't more jobs. It's less people.
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The exodus happened before Rick Scott and your theory is off. The exodus was not the welfare class, rather business owners, snow birds and working middle class. This is pretty well documented over the years.
 
redrumloa said:
The exodus happened before Rick Scott and your theory is off. The exodus was not the welfare class, rather business owners, snow birds and working middle class. This is pretty well documented over the years.
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Some of those who have left were illegal aliens who had lost their construction jobs. It started in 07, they were picking up and moving to New Orleans for work. Now if FL ever gets e-verify, there will be more illegal aliens leaving FL, and that would be a wonderful thing for a state that is around 20% U-6 unemployment.
 
Gov. Rick Scott posts university professors salaries online

Gov. Rick Scott has found another way to irk university professors in the state: he’s posting their salaries online.
The salaries of state university professors, and all public employees in the state, have always been public record. But usually it takes some digging to find it. No more. You can find them on the website, floridahasarighttoknow.com.
"The governor feels like there needs to be transparency and this is one way he's made getting access to these public records easy for everybody," Scott spokesman Lane Wright told the Orlando Sentinel.
Tom Auxter, a a University of Florida professor who heads a statewide university faculty group, told the Gainesville Sun that this is part of Scott’s attempts to push for “radical changes” for university professors. Scott has expressed interest in ending tenure and weeding out unproductive professors.
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Red, thanks for the comments on the exodus.

As for transparency it's good for the government to be open. Salaries are one item to share. The difficult part is that most people don't know what the government does or why it does it. If it's just Salaries that's fairly political. Everything related to spending should be open too. We should not just see salaries but all spending including all vendors.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Maybe he should go further and post the salary of everyone working in Florida. I think that would be a good idea. But let's not stop there - he should also post the non salary incomes including investment incomes. It's all about openness.
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He can and should post the salary of everyone working for the government. It is public record and helps see were corruption is.
 
redrumloa said:
He can and should post the salary of everyone working for the government. It is public record and helps see were corruption is.
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It's one data point in that of supposed corruption. Is a cop more or less corrupt if they make $10/hour vs $50/hr? I'd say the minimum would be someone close to a liveable wage. For it's at this point where one would lose stuff like homes.

My thought goes to one of my high school teachers who stated he'll help any kid cheat. But, since he'd get fired he'd need at least 10x his salary to do it. IMO we all have our acceptable limits.
 
faethor said:
It's one data point in that of supposed corruption. Is a cop more or less corrupt if they make $10/hour vs $50/hr? I'd say the minimum would be someone close to a liveable wage. For it's at this point where one would lose stuff like homes.
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Got news for you, FL law enforcement officers are typically the worst paid of all LEOs in the state of Florida. There are a few exceptions in some of the really poor counties or cities, but for the most part, it's starvation wages. That is why in FL, you will see State LEOs (FHP, DOT, DEP, FWC) officers working traffic details (directly paid by the construction companies) at construction sites. Prime example, a good friend of mine who I use to ride with back when I was a reserve LEO, left FWC after 22 years (he was FMP/FPP under DEP) and went to work for the Village (yes it's small) of Tequesta's Police Dept. His weekly wage for working as a village cop equal to what he was making with FWC plus his off duty details of 8-16 hours @ week.

So it's a very good thing to show what the employees of the State of Florida are making. I think most people will be shocked at how little some are making and their are putting their life on the line five days a week. Vs what other state employees are being paid for, ah, teaching.
 
Dammy said:
Got news for you, FL law enforcement officers are typically the worst paid of all LEOs in the state of Florida. There are a few exceptions in some of the really poor counties or cities, but for the most part, it's starvation wages.
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You would be really disgusted what some local agencies police officers in the tri-county make compared to the rest of the state and what sort of benefits they get. Does a city officer in Hollywood, FL really need to be making 10x the total compensation of a rural State Trooper?

Salary doesn't even include perks, like the Miami-Dade officer with a take home car with free gasoline who lives and commutes to and from West Palm Beach, which is ~75 miles each way? Especially when those officers drive 100+ mph weaving through traffic every day on their commute?
 
redrumloa said:
You would be really disgusted what some local agencies police officers in the tri-county make compared to the rest of the state and what sort of benefits they get. Does a city officer in Hollywood, FL really need to be making 10x the total compensation of a rural State Trooper?
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State Troopers (thanks to FAST) get paid highest (or was, not sure of today's starting wages) for initial starting salaries among the State LEOs. Catch is their pay does not go up until the rest of the state law enforcement's wages catches up. There is also CAD counties that see an extra $5K yearly increase.

Salary doesn't even include perks, like the Miami-Dade officer with a take home car with free gasoline who lives and commutes to and from West Palm Beach, which is ~75 miles each way? Especially when those officers drive 100+ mph weaving through traffic every day on their commute?
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Oh yeah, back prior to this depression, entire counties were not being covered by FWC because all the officers quit for city/county police/sheriff's jobs. If you are earning $35K (over time, whatzzat?) and City of Palm Beach will pay starting salary of $50K (plus OT!), what would you do? And IIRC, City of Palm Beach PD is also on the state retirement system. And the other perk, ETE for backup is not measured in hours. I knew of one PBC Deputy (Sgt) was pulling OT like a mad man, he grossed over $100K during his last couple of years prior to his retirement.

I was making as a letter carrier, more money then my old Lts were making, probably real close to what one of my Capt was making.
 
redrumloa said:
He can and should post the salary of everyone working for the government. It is public record and helps see were corruption is.
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Just government? Why not post all private salaries while he's at it?
 
Robert said:
Just government? Why not post all private salaries while he's at it?
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He doesn't have it to post, for one thing. Second, there are privacy laws. Third, interesting response from the Progressives on allowing sunshine in on government employee's salaries that Red and I pay for out of our nearly empty pockets. Whyzzat?
 
Dammy said:
interesting response from the Progressives on allowing sunshine in on government employee's salaries that Red and I pay for out of our nearly empty pockets. Whyzzat?
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Are you referring to me as one of your "Progressives"?
If so, I'm not sure I deserve the honour or what point you are trying to make.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Obviously the police union in FL is crap.
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Not sure who won the latest voting for FL LEO bargaining unit. When I was in, it was IUPA which is affiliated with AFL/CIO. FHP has their own, http://www.fastinc.org/ IMO, the rest of the state LEOs should just adopt FAST as their bargaining unit. Can't do any worse then what they have had in the past.
 
Dammy said:
He doesn't have it to post, for one thing. Second, there are privacy laws. Third, interesting response from the Progressives on allowing sunshine in on government employee's salaries that Red and I pay for out of our nearly empty pockets. Whyzzat?
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And fourthly, no-one likes having their salary advertised. You don't want everyone in the world to know what you are making. That's what the privacy issue is all about.
And private industry doesn't want everyone knowing what everyone else is making either. If you could look up the salary of the guy sitting next to you and see he was making twice what you make for the exact same job - it might be disruptive in the office and lead to people asking for higher pay.
If making salaries public in for public employees should lead to a more rational pay scale then surely the same thing applies to the private sector. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
And fourthly, no-one likes having their salary advertised. You don't want everyone in the world to know what you are making. That's what the privacy issue is all about.
And private industry doesn't want everyone knowing what everyone else is making either. If you could look up the salary of the guy sitting next to you and see he was making twice what you make for the exact same job - it might be disruptive in the office and lead to people asking for higher pay.
If making salaries public in for public employees should lead to a more rational pay scale then surely the same thing applies to the private sector. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
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No, public sector is being paid by my tax dollars. I'm not forced to cough up money for private sector (until Obamacare), it's none of my business what private company pays it's employees. The dollars that I am forced to pay to the government, makes it my business on what those employees of the government are making.
 
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