News

A deal to shift up to 60,000 insurance policies from the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to privately held Heritage Property Insurance is raising concerns.  

On the left, former Florida State Senator Dan Gelber is criticizing a $110,000 contribution made by Heritage for Governor Rick Scott’s upcoming reelection bid.

Highway 20 in North Florida connects several small bedroom communities to Tallahassee and serves as one of the city’s main entrance points. The City of Blountstown is one those towns, and it requested and received $472,000 from the legislature to replace an aging water main on the highway.

“Replacing a water line doesn’t generate any revenue, per-say. You just avoid future costs. By my estimates, it was worth it,"  said Blountstown City Manager Emory Pierce.

The Florida Department of Education has released the 2013 FCAT reports for reading, writing and math and the news is a mixed bag. Students made big gains over last year’s disastrous writing test, but results in reading and math were stagnant.

Teachers put the blame for last year’s poor writing test results on a lack of training.  They accused the Department of Education for failing to communicate its expectations. Now the Department’s Pam Stewart says the issues have been addressed:

Governor Rick Scott has signed Florida’s new elections reform bill into law, but will that solve the problems that arose during last year’s Presidential election? Some say yes, but others say there’s more work to do stop long lines at the polls and protect the state from further embarrassment.

Last year, Florida encountered a lot of problems during the 2012 presidential election from counting delays to long lines at the polls.

Governor Rick Scott is doubling down on his opposition to tuition increases. Lynn Hatter reports, the Governor has written letters to each state university president as well as members of the board that governs them.

Even though Governor Rick Scott vetoed a three-percent tuition increase approved by the legislature, universities could still request tuition hikes from the Florida Board of Governors.