Four employees ousted at Blind Services over sweetheart deal

Thousands of state workers haven't received pay raises in years, but Division of Blind Services worker Caroline McManus was due for a $97,000 boost overnight.

The plan: To quit her $59,000 computer programming position and return the next day as a $156,000 contractor.

All the managers approved it. Same job, same desk, more than double the pay.

While that sounds like a great deal for the employee, it also violates a rule that bans workers from leaving state jobs and returning within two years for more money.

After learning about the ploy from an audit released this week, officials with the Department of Education halted it and fired two employees, suspended two others without pay, and forced two more to resign. One of those forced to resign was the division's director, Joyce Hildreth, who had approved the pay raise for McManus.

This is only the latest sign of turmoil at the Division of Blind Services. Last month, a Times/Herald story revealed Hildreth, a former contractor, farmed out no-bid contracts to her former coworkers that were so loosely worded the groups could charge $58 dollars per hour for driving to a blind person's house or more than $2,000 for a brief phone call.

Read more here. 

Florida releases results of license tag contest

Florida voters have selected their next license tag.

The green-rimmed, leafed-orange winner in a poll of about 50,000 online voters could be released as soon as 2014. It is scheduled to be phased in over two years on Florida's 15 million vehicles.

"Sunshine State" is at the plate's bottom edge, and the center is stamped with seven characters instead of the traditional six, to keep Florida from running out of character combinations.

"The online poll represents one part of the process to select the new plate design," says a news release from the Department of Highway and Motor Vehicles. "Before the design is manufactured, the public's vote will be factored in with input from the Governor, Cabinet and policy makers.

Read more here.

Delegates cast official votes for Obama

The votes that really count have been cast. 

Florida delegates, with their sought-after 29 electoral college votes, submitted their ballots for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden during a ceremony in Tallahassee's Senate chamber Monday.

State law doesn't require delegates to cast their ballots in accordance with the popular vote. But the delegates had sworn allegiance to the Democratic Party, and Obama and Biden were the only names on the ballot.

Lawmakers discuss wise use of tax dollars for crime

Following a three-day Smart Justice Summit held in Orlando, Sen. Greg Evers, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee; Rep. Dennis Baxley, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Rob Bradley, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal & Civil Justice – talked about solutions for saving money and decreasing recidivism, while still being tough on crime.

Many of the ideas came from Smart Justice, which administered a public opinion poll to find out how Floridians want public officials to spend their tax dollars when it comes to crime. Among other things, the poll found that three-quarters of Floridians believe a lawmaker can support programs to lower recidivism while still being considered “tough on crime,” according to a Smart Justice news release.

Many of the poll questions centered around whether initiatives to lower prison time for non-violent offenders would lead to a candidate being labeled by constituents as soft on crime.  

Among the poll’s findings:

State clemency board grants pardon to wrongly imprisoned man

After a wrongful murder conviction that put him behind bars for 27 years, William Michael Dillon received formal forgiveness from the state Thursday.

Dillon, who was awarded a $1.3 million settlement by the state in March, stood before Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet and recounted how far his life has come since he was released from maximum security prison four years ago, exonerated by DNA evidence.

Clemency hearings, in which elected officials grant pardons and rule on whether to restore civil rights for convicted felons, are usually somber, even tearful.

But Dillon's testimony was upbeat, drawing smiles from an audience of freed felons waiting for their own opportunity to ask for the legal system's fullest measure of forgiveness.

Read full story here. 

WCTV raises issues at Blind Services

Among the hundreds of pages in documents reviewed by the Herald/Times investigation into Division of Blind Services was an internal investigation that upturned severe employee unrest.

Here are some of the details, reported by WCTV. Among other problems, an inspector general report found high employee turnover (62 people voluntarily left in 2011) and a work environment that is "hostile" and "unfair."

The Herald/Times in November reported that many employees had tried to blow the whistle on lax oversight of no-bid state contracts, but were silenced by fear of division director Joyce Hildreth, a former leader in the industry she's now charged with overseeing. 

See the video here. 

 

Atwater 'not surprised' at Crist switch

Even as Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater refrained from speculating on the political plans of former Gov. Charlie Crist, he wasn't shy to criticize Crist's switch from Republican to Democrat. 

"I'm not surprised by it," Atwater said with a laugh. "He's been a Republican, he's been an Independent, he's now a Democrat in what's probably a 48-month period. I don't know what's left, maybe there are some other parties out there that would like his participation and might start soliciting."

Atwater, who was Senate president when Crist was governor, also jabbed at Crist for flip-flopping when he held elected office and for passing the buck on tough decisions. Crist is widely believed to be positioning himself to run as a Democrat against Gov. Rick Scott in 2014.

Florida recedes on license tag fight

Backing away from a possible court fight, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Friday that it will halt its attempt to bid license tag services to private vendors.

Tax collectors — which distribute state tags — and two manufacturing groups tried to block the change by lobbying elected officials and filing legal action against the department.

Highway Safety Chief Julie Jones had wanted to save money by paying private companies $31.4 million over two years to make tags and distribute mail and online orders, but she abandoned the idea under pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, among others.

Read more here.

NYT: George Zimmerman sues NBC for defamation

From The New York Times.

George Zimmerman, accused of second-degree murder in the shooting of Trayvon Martin earlier this year, filed suit against NBCUniversal on Thursday, alleging that the company’s editing of his voice on a 911 tape constituted defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The suit, filed in circuit court in Seminole County, Fla., asked for a jury trial. A spokeswoman for NBCUniversal said in response to the suit, “We strongly disagree with the accusations made in the complaint. There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly. We intend to vigorously defend our position in court.”

The suit charges that journalists at NBC News intentionally edited Mr. Zimmerman’s statements to make him appear to be a “racist, predatory villain.”

The edits of a 911 audio recording — which removed an intervening question from the operator directly asking Mr. Zimmerman what race Mr. Martin was — occurred three times on NBC’s “Today” show, first on March 20 in a story by Lilia Luciano; on March 22 in another story by Ms. Luciano; and again on March 27 in a story by Ron Allen.

Read more here.

Solyndra auctioneer to sell off Digital Domain assets

Digital Domain, the failed animation company that left the state on the hook for $20 million, now has one more trait in common with Solyndra.

The auctioneer.

California-based auction company Heritage Global Partners will host live and online auctions Dec. 12-14 to sell off the remainder of Digital Domain Media Group's almost-new computers, film equipment and movie-theater style seats.