Sink to meet with angry investors

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who pushed last week to freeze the state's battered Local Government Investment Pool and hire an outside company to manage it, could be in for a cool reception this morning. Sink has agreed to go to the joint conference of the Florida School Boards Association and Florida Association of District School Superintendents in Tampa and talk to elected officials about what the State Board of Administration has done with the pool _ which was reopened on Thursday to limited withdrawals.

"She feels it's very important to talk to investors,'' said Tara Klimek, a spokeswoman for Sink. "She wants more communication, especially from the SBA going to investors."

School officials also extended an invitation to Attorney General Bill McCollum, but he does not plan to go to the meeting said his office.

Some school officials, including Jackie Pons, the school superintendent for Leon County, are angry that they cannot withdraw all the money that have invested in the pool without paying a 2 percent penalty. Pons said on Thursday that he's gone over the agreements between his district and the SBA and he cannot find any legal authority to charge a fee.