From the White House: President Obama today announced the charities that will receive a portion of the $1.4 million award that comes with the Nobel peace prize.
"These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," said President Obama. "I’m proud to support their work."
The charities include: $200,000 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Obama asked former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to create the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund to raise funds for long-term relief efforts in Haiti.
$250,000 to Fisher House, a national non-profit organization that provides housing for families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers.
$125,000 to College Summit, a national non-profit organization that partners with elementary and middle schools and school districts to strengthen college-going culture and increase college enrollment rates, so that all students graduate from high school career and college-ready.
$125,000 to the Posse Foundation, a national non-profit organization that identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Posse’s college and university partners award Posse Scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships. The scholars graduate at a rate of 90 percent.
$125,000 to the United Negro College Fund, which enables more than 60,000 students each year to attend college through scholarship and internship programs.
$125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the nation's leading Hispanic scholarship organization, providing the Hispanic community more college scholarships and educational outreach support than any other organization in the country. In its 34 year history, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund has awarded close to $280M in scholarships to more than 90,000 students in need.
$125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, a non-profit organization funded by foundations and companies, ALEF supports and enables young men and women from Appalachia to pursue higher education though scholarship and leadership curriculum.
$125,000 to the American Indian College Fund, which funds and creates awareness of the unique, community-based accredited Tribal Colleges and Universities, offering students access to knowledge, skills, and cultural values which enhance their communities and the country as a whole.
$100,000 to AfriCare, which has more projects in Africa than any other U.S. based charity, reaching communities in 25 countries, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its programs address needs in three principal areas: health and HIV/AIDS; food security and agriculture; and water resource development.
$100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which promotes and supports community-based education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Institute’s co-founder, Greg Mortenson, was also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year, whose book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time, recounts his attempt to successfully establish dozens of schools and promote girls’ education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Here's an ironic fact about ex-County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion's sentencing tomorrow before Judge Donald Middlebrooks: the judge wrote an ethics law about financial disclosure while working for Gov. Reubin Askew in the 1970s.
Filing his financial disclosure late was one of Eggelletion's many mishaps overs the years. He was fined by the state twice in the past for filing late and nearly missed the deadline this year too. When interviewed by the Miami Herald in August he explained: "I choose for it to be late."
Eggelletion faces up to five years in prison on a money laundering charge. Sentencing guidelines call for between 30 and 37 months. He will learn his fate at a 10:30 a.m. hearing Friday in West Palm Beach but the judge will likely let him surrender next month.
Check out this e-mail from the Democratic party:
We have exciting news and wanted you to be the
first to
know. President Obama will be in Miami on April 15th to help
Organizing for America and the Democratic National Committee get the
resources
we need to continue the progress made in the President’s first year in
office. So much has been accomplished and much more is on
the cusp
of being done to help America’s families succeed and flourish. We need
to
do our part…This is not a fire drill. It might be the only
event
Miami gets with the President this year. We need YOU!
Legislative economist Amy Baker told the House Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review that if the state were willing to auction off licenses for eight new casinos in Florida, the state could draw between $2.3 billion and $1.5 billion in additional money a year, over and above what it could make from an Indian gaming compact.
The it would come with a price: the state would have to wait at three years to see the cash
"Using very conservative assumptions, it is feasible for Florida to have an auction for eight facility licenses,'' Baker said. "We also believe Florida would generate significantly more state revenue than the proposed state compact would generate over a four year period…But there's some considerations and these thiings are things you are going ot have to bear in mind."
Among the considerations: the state would have no receipts for the first years while the new casinos are being built; the state would lose the money it's now getting from the Seminole Tribe, estimated at $433 million by the end of this fiscal year and $125.5 million going forward, and the situation would result in a "net increase in gaming in Florida."
Sen. Durell Peaden has the ugliest job in the Legislature: Presiding over the healthcare budget, which is often ugly. There's no exception this year. What's new this year: Peaden sounds like he has had enough of the election-year politics — with Gov. Charlie Crist running for Senate, and Attorney General Bill McCollum running for governor along with state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Senate President Jeff Atwater running for Sink's seat.
Peaden said his budget need more money and he urged people to lobby Crist, Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul (who's not running for higher office).
"Folks need to go and talk to the presiding officers, the governor. Everybody’s running for higher office," Peaden said. "We need more money we need more revenues to address these serious issues. We’ve cut this budget to the bone. You can’t cut it anymore…. There’s nothing political here…"
Q: What about the candidates for higher office?
Peaden: "If they want to demonstrate what they want to do for the people of the state of Florida, they need to be down here with us on the ground, talking about real issues… whatever they’re compelled to say on the campaign trail, they might ought to say it here because this is where it really counts. The rest of it’s jus fodder."
Q: You sound upset
Peaden: "I’m not upset. I’m just concerned. This is very serious business. This is a life and death committee."
Peaden said he's sending a letter to Senate President Jeff Atwater asking that any of the new Medicaid stimulus money expected out of Congress (between $740m and $1b) be spent on…. Medicaid! Peaden made the same demand last year and was ignored. Legislators say they'll plug in the fed money in Medicaid, then pull out the state money to spread on other parts of the budget.
The Senate committee crafting the budget for K-12 public and charter schools on Thursday received grim data on projected enrollment and tax revenues that, combined, promise to make their job more challenging.
In a 180-degree turn from last spring when education officials were projecting a 10,000-student decline in student enrollment, state officials now say that more than 19,000 additional students are likely to show up in K-12 classrooms come this fall.
Florida's two dozen regional workforce boards are in for a rude awakening as a result of wasteful spending and allegations of cronyism by a couple of the local boards.
"They're breaking the law … It's unconscionable," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, chairman of a budget committee that oversees the boards and the Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI). Fasano praised AWI for helping blow the whistle on the abusive conduct by workforce boards in Tampa Bay and Polk counties.
Much of the outrage was a response to disclosures by the AWI inspector general's office about free-spending board members opening the public checkbook for meals, hotels and other events.
Fasano's committee on Thursday discussed proposed legislation (SB 1646) that would prevent regional workforce board members from having contracts with their board; require the chairman of each board to be subject to Senate confirmation; and require the hiring of each regional workforce board executive director to be approved by local elected officials (usually county commissioners).
Just a few months ago, Senate President Jeff Atwater told his chamber's budget committee "we will not extract one more dollar from the small business owner of this state or from any Floridians wallet to accomplish the task."
Looks like hospitals don't count in the no-more-taxes pledge.
To help balance the budget and raise $55 million, the Senate's Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee proposed a .5 percent increase in the "sick tax" paid by hospital patients. The budget also cuts hospital, nursing home and HMO Medicaid reimbursement rates by 7 percent.
The budget also proposes expanding managed-care in Medicaid in up to 19 counties for a $30 million savings. The savings would come because of the elimination of the fraud-ridden pay-as-you go (and bill-as-you like) fee-for-service system.
There's also a $22.7 million savings that the state estimates it was save through capping rates and cracking down on Medicaid fraud — savings that are not guaranteed. But, if the most recently announced fraud legislation passes, it's more guaranteed to give Atwater a good political platform (more here on that).
But this budget is only a first draft. And it's truly incomplete. The proposed budget doesn't include anywhere from $740 million to $1 billion in federal money that could likely arrive from Washington now that the U.S. Senate has approved a state Medicaid bailout.
Still, the budget is especially grim for Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital. Thanks to some financial mismanagement and a series of unfortunate incidents, the hospital is $230m in the hole right now and, under the healthcare budget, could sustain anywhere from $33m to $100m in cuts and expenses. Jackson CEO Eneida O. Roldan is in Tallahassee today, spreading the word that she has a plan and, eventually, sure could use some more cash. That's not a gimme, said Durell Peaden, chairman of the Senate health budget committee.
"There's no money," he said.
House Energy Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Precourt has scheduled a Wednesday workshop on his committee's Public Service Commission bill that is intended to reorganize the utility regulator — which he described as "not operating very efficiently, very well internally.''
The bill will reorganize part of the PSC, he said, in addition to tightening the ex parte communication rules between commission staff and utilities that was passed by the full Senate on the second day of the legislative session last week.
"We're going to do something more aggressive than what the Senate has proposed at his point,'' said Precourt, R-Orlando. "We’re going to look at the commissioners themselves, how they’re appointed their terms and all of that. We’re still dotting all the i's and crossing all the ts. We’re not in a position to give too much definition to that right now.''
Precourt said he disagrees that commissioners should be required to follow the judicial code of conduct but that changes need to be made to the way the commission handles "internal communication and influence." The House proposal will include "some of the pieces and parts out of the Senate bill," he said.
What has motivated the change? "All the things you see in the media,'' he said. The House bill will be available on Tuesday.
Gov. Charlie Crist on the South Florida Water Management District's vote to extend the contract to purchase U.S. Sugar land: "Today marks another significant step in the journey to truly save Florida's Everglades. I applaud the courage of the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District for standing firm and acting in Florida's best interest. Their unanimous vote to extend the contract has set us on a course that will change the history of Florida for the better. I thank the members for recognizing the enormous restoration potential this acquisition represents, and for their commitment to doing so without raising taxes. Every Floridian of this generation and future generations will benefit from restoring the natural flow of the River of Grass."
Yeah right, says U.S. Senate rival Marco Rubio in this video: