🏡 🧵The recent flooding from Hurricane Helene/Milton has devastated semi-affordable homes in St. Pete’s Shore Acres & Pinellas coastal communities. The FEMA 50% rule now threatens over 10K homes, forcing many homeowners to sell. Lines for permits are long—and filled with tears. 2/ 💔 Every day more families are being displaced. If we don’t act now, the homes rebuilt on these properties will cost over $1M, as they are forced to meet new floodplain standards. These new units replace older, more affordable homes, worsening the affordability crisis.

@citizens_fla is growing at 8000 policies a week. By December 2023 Citizens will be back at its high watermark of 1.5 million policies. Unlike private insurance, Citizens rates are not actuarially sound and are now ~50% below the private market in many areas across the state.

https://twitter.com/tb_times/status/1572399614648516610

Furthermore, The insurer of last resort was served 5,907 lawsuits in the first half of 2022, for an average of 985 new lawsuits per month. The monthly average is 10% higher when compared to the same time in 2021. As of June 30, pending lawsuits = 19,139. spglobal.com/marketintellig…

This article reminded me of the quote from #topgun

“What you should have done was land your plane! You don't own that plane! The taxpayers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash!"

Florida’s ego is writing checks @citizens_fla can’t cash.

https://twitter.com/ijournal/status/1567692963886628864

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.

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.

https://twitter.com/ucf87cpa/status/1566170100033638402

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.

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.

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