Loading up @citizens_fla with high dollar policies at subsidized rates puts the risk on the backs of hardworking Floridians. More government is NOT the solution to this problem, in many ways it makes it worse. Citizens is already dangerous overloaded with underpriced policies.
We’re in a dogfight with the trial bar. The only way to win is tort reform, ending one way attorney fees, ending AOBs, and allowing actual cash value/stated value policies on roofs. In addition, you must make at least new policies going into citizens actuarially sound.
Without these reforms to Florida’s property insurance laws we will continue to see companies fail or withdraw from the market. Citizens will ballon to 2M policies. And insurance rates rise will like an F14 shooting off a carrier deck.
Only the Florida legislature can fix this. #Florida cannot be both the most hurricane prone state and the most litigious. Those two things cannot coexist and rates go down.
We are dangerously close to this market going down in a "Great ball of fire!"
The National Guard is no substitute for trained and professional corrections officers and will not make the situation better in the short or long term. Pay, working conditions, and overcrowding has made the FDOC the Florida Department of Warehousing.
85% of Florida’s prisons are without air conditioning. Most institutions has little programming and few educators, it’s not unusual to see 1500 inmates and 2 or less educators on the compound. 1/2 of inmates cannot read at the 6th grade level.
The physical facilities are old and a maintenance nightmare. Healthcare is provided by overworked and understaffed contractors. Florida uses a cost plus contract because no one would bid on the RFP we put out to manage the statewide prison healthcare system.
As we prepare to go into legislative session let’s spend a few minutes talking about what’s going on in the Florida DoC and how the state is managing the collapse of the department. Currently almost 70% of our state run correction facilities are in emergency staffing.
This is because we are facing a shortage of almost 5800 corrections officers throughout the state. It’s a difficult job and the pay is meager at best about 38k and with mandatory overtime at most facilities where you will face disciplinary action if you can’t work extra shifts.
The pay, forced overtime, and working conditions (85% of our facilities have no A/C) are some of the reason that 40% of our corrections officers leave within the first year and 60% leave before their 2nd anniversary.
This week we held our first Justice Appropriations meeting on Wednesday. On Friday I visited the Charlotte Correctional Facility. Based on the budget briefing and my visit I have grave concerns about the direction of Florida’s justice system.
My takeaway from the budget briefing is that the DoC will be asking for over $330 million in new recurring funds to sustain existing operations(not improve, only sustain) Additional funds for inmate healthcare and staff recruitment/retention are the main areas of the DoCs request
Note that last year my committee received only $102 million in new money to address all areas in the Justice Appropriation budget such as DoC, DJJ, States Attorneys, Pubic Defenders, and the Courts.