Florida lawmakers have approved a plan that would give Gov. Rick Scott more control over the state's regional jobs boards, allowing Scott and future governors to remove agency board members or top executives for poor performance.
The legislation, which awaits the governor's signature, follows a series of Orlando Sentinel articles last year detailing questionable spending and management decisions at the regional boards, particularly Workforce Central Florida.
Several of those stories focused on contracts that publicly funded regional workforce boards had awarded to companies controlled by their board members. Lawmakers revived a recently expired provision subjecting those contracts to greater state scrutiny, but they stopped short of forbidding such contracts entirely.
That was viewed as impractical because the boards often do business with Florida's community colleges, and they are required to have representatives from those institutions on their boards. But a state policy, approved last August, generally forbids regional workforce boards from awarding contracts to for-profit businesses owned or controlled by their board members.
"The Workforce policy goes further than the state law," said Workforce Florida spokeswoman Adriane Grant.
The Sentinel found that over the past six years, board-member businesses received more than $1 million from Workforce Central Florida, the region's labor-development agency. The money went to office-furniture companies, advertising firms and marketing companies tied to workforce board members.
Agencies in other parts of the state engaged in the practice as well. From 2008 to 2010, they issued 574 contracts ? valued at more than $55 million ? to organizations tied to board members, according to a report requested by state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.
Most of that went to nonprofit entities, but at least $7 million went to private, for-profit companies linked to or controlled by board members. The money paid for everything from promotional water bottles to office space.
Agencies generally defended the deals, saying they followed all existing rules and regulations. But several also announced they were ending the practice ? at least in those cases where a board member was connected to a for-profit venture.
The federally funded agencies receive hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year to help people find work and help businesses better train their employees. Though state and federal officials limit how the grant money can be used, the agencies have historically enjoyed broad autonomy.
State Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, sponsored the Senate version of the bill, which passed unanimously.
Gardiner said the legislation was made necessary by "mismanagement" and a "lack of transparency."
"Reforming the state's troubled workforce boards was among Gov. Scott's priorities this year," Gardiner said in a statement. "This bill will help restore credibility and accountability."
Regional workforce-board officials who opposed the measure said the legislation is too far-reaching ? an overreaction to problems they said were mostly limited to Workforce Central Florida. They warned it could undermine local control of the agencies, concentrating too much power in Tallahassee.
In September, Scott demanded the resignation of the entire Workforce Central Florida board and almost all of its top executives. Though his order was impossible to ignore from a practical ? and political ? perspective, Scott did not have the power to unilaterally remove board members and agency executives.
The measure (HB 7023) gives him that power if the executive or board member is not properly performing duties. It also requires agency officials to file financial-disclosure forms and prohibits agencies from breaking up payments to outside organizations in an attempt to evade state scrutiny.
State officials are investigating Workforce Central Florida's $50,000 contribution to a regional business group that was made in small increments, apparently to avoid detection.
Workforce Central Florida Chairman Kevin Shaughnessy said he supports some of the changes in the legislation, but, like others, wonders whether lawmakers went too far.
"We'll have to see how the governor applies the statute," said Shaughnessy, who was appointed after the previous board was forced out. "Sometimes legislatures go overboard trying to correct a problem."
jstratton@tribune.com or 407-420-5379
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