January 18, 2011

Florida’s Governor Can’t Count, Even When Shafting State Employees

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rickscotthead.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>

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For several weeks now, since billionaire Rick Scott was inaugurated as governor of Florida, I’ve been wanting to spotlight some of the Sunshine State’s political insanity. We here at MoJo are busy putting together the next print issue, however, so you’ll have to wait just a bit longer for in-depth reporting on sketchy political appointments, criminal investigations of Republicans, misadventures in deregulation, and gruesome soft-money trails. In the meantime, though, one tipster told MoJo today of a new low in Scott’s tenure: his inability to appear marginally competent, even when bringing the hurt to state employees.

According to the source, Scott held a video conference with selected state employees today, including career law-enforcement officers. Its purpose: Scott wanted to personally inform state workers that they’d have to cut back to 13 paid holidays per year. This news was apparently met with total silence from the state employees. The reason? They currently only take nine paid holidays, a fact that’s easily discernible from the state’s own website. After the conference, state employees reportedly emailed and called each other furiously, laughing over the miscalculation: “Did he really say that? Does he really not know?”

Mind you, Mother Jones‘ source for this information—who deigned to work yesterday, a federal and Florida state holiday—is no big-government-loving pinko. “Rick Scott is such a fumbling idiot,” the source said. “He thinks he’s running the federal government!”

We don’t know about that, but we do know this isn’t the first time Scott’s had no idea what he was talking about as the state’s chief executive. (Direct quote from a press conference: “It has to go through the Legislature, is my understanding…That’s not my understanding. I’m not sure. I have to check into that, but that’s not my understanding. It’s not my understanding right now.”) And he also has plans to slash more benefits for state employees, including a retirement pension system that was already pared down by then-governor Jeb Bush.

Perhaps that’s why he’s limited media access to government officials in an unprecedented manner, in a state that has one of the nation’s most expansive sunshine laws. Be that as it may, rest assured, dear reader, MJ will bring much, much more on the sordid state of affairs in this politically vital appendage of the union.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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