__________________________________________

Representing:

Administration Commission

Highway Safety And Motor Vehicles

Department of Revenue

State Board of Education

Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund

Marine Fisheries Commission

__________________________________________

The above agencies came to be heard before THE

FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush presiding,

in the City Council Room, City Hall, 117 West Duval

Street, Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday, May 25,

1999, commencing at approximately 9:00 a.m.

Reported by:

KAREN ADAIR RUIZ

Registered Professional Reporter

Certified Court Reporter

Notary Public in and for

the State of Florida at Large

_ _ _

AMERICAN COURT REPORTERS

1500 Beville Road, Suite 606-235

Daytona Beach, Florida 32114-5644

(904)252-9774

_

2

APPEARANCES:

Representing the Florida Cabinet:

JEB BUSH

Governor

BOB CRAWFORD

Commissioner of Agriculture

BOB MILLIGAN

Comptroller

KATHERINE HARRIS

Secretary of State

BOB BUTTERWORTH

Attorney General

BILL NELSON

Treasurer

TOM GALLAGHER

Commissioner of Education

*

3

I N D E X

ITEM ACTION PAGE

Administration Commission:

(Presented by Donna Arduin,

Director, Planning and Budgeting,

Governor's Office)

1 Approved 7

2 Approved 7

3 Approved 8

4 Approved 8

5 Approved 8

6 Approved 9

7 Approved 9

8 Approved 10

9 Approved 10

10 Approved 10

11 Approved 11

12 Approved 11

Highway Safety And Motor Vehicles:

(Presented by Fred O. Dickinson, III,

Executive Director)

1 Approved 13

2 Approved 14

3 Approved 22

4 Deferred 22

Department of Revenue:

(Presented by Larry Fuchs,

Executive Director)

1 Approved 23

2 Approved 25

4

I N D E X

(Continued)

State Board of Education:

(Presented by Wayne V. Pierson,

Deputy Commissioner)

1 Information 26

2 Approved 77

3 Approved 79

ITEM ACTION PAGE

Board Trustees of the Internal

Improvement Trust Fund:

(Presented by David B. Struhs,

Secretary)

1 Approved 81

2 Approved 85

3 Deferred 85

4 Approved 88

5 Approved 88

6 Approved 89

7 Approved 89

8 Approved 90

9 Approved 90

10 Approved 113

11 Approved 114

12 Approved 135

Marine Fisheries Commission:

(Presented by Russell S. Nelson, Ph.D.,

Executive Director)

A Approved 138

B Approved 147

CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 152

*

_

5

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (The agenda items commenced at 9:30 a.m.)

3 GOVERNOR BUSH: The Administration

4 Commission.

5 Perhaps when -- as Donna Arduin comes up,

6 General Butterworth, you can give the audience

7 a brief description of what the Administration

8 Commission does.

9 Being new to the job, I can't do that,

10 so...

11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH:

12 Administration Commission --

13 MS. ARDUIN: Thank you, Governor and

14 Cabinet.

15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Hang on a second.

16 Donna?

17 MS. ARDUIN: Yeah.

18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Let's let -- let's let

19 the General describe the Administration

20 Commission briefly.

21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I never

22 realized how ugly my glasses were until I just

23 turned on this microphone (sic), but this is

24 really -- and my ten-year-old was right, I

25 should not have taken these with me.

_

6

1 From time to time it is necessary for

2 various agencies to have to re -- in essence,

3 reallocate some of their monies within their

4 budget. They're able to do so under law. And

5 in certain cases they have to come before the

6 Cabinet to do so. And we are here today in

7 order to deal with certain issues dealing with

8 the -- with various agencies who are going to

9 be requesting money to go from one place to

10 another.

11 In some -- in some cases the federal

12 government may award monies to the State or to

13 various agencies. And it does take action

14 from the Cabinet in order to put that money

15 there. Occasionally the legislature will make

16 a mistake, and when all the law is sorted

17 out -- occasionally -- and that -- when all

18 the laws are settled out, sometimes the

19 Administration Commission has to move

20 positions, one agency to another, in order to

21 accomplish what the legislature really meant

22 to do.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the

24 minutes.

25 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion --

_

7

1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: (Indicating)

2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- and a second.

3 Without objection, it's approved.

4 Thank you, General Butterworth.

5 MS. ARDUIN: Thanks. Item 2, I recommend

6 approval of a transfer among categories of

7 General Revenue appropriations for the Agency

8 for Health Care Administration for Medicaid

9 Services to properly align the Medicaid

10 operating budget in conjunction with

11 re-estimates done by the Social Services

12 Estimating Conference held on February 16th,

13 1999.

14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

15 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Seconded.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

17 Without objection, it's approved.

18 MS. ARDUIN: Item 3, I recommend approval

19 of a transfer of General Revenue

20 appropriations for the Agency for Health Care

21 Administration for Medicaid Services within

22 the Long-Term Care items.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

24 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Second.

25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

_

8

1 Without objection, it's approved.

2 MS. ARDUIN: Item 4, I recommend approval

3 of a transfer of General Revenue

4 appropriations from the Alcohol, Drug Abuse

5 and Mental Health Services between the

6 Department of Children and Families and the

7 Agency for Health Care Administration.

8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

9 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Second.

10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

11 Without objection, it's approved.

12 MS. ARDUIN: Item 5, I recommend approval

13 of a transfer of General Revenue

14 appropriations for the Department of

15 Agriculture Consumer Services for the Office

16 of the Commissioner, Division of

17 Administration.

18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

19 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

21 Without objection, it's approved.

22 MS. ARDUIN: Item 6, I recommend approval

23 of a transfer of General Revenue

24 appropriations for the Department of Children

25 and Families to cover a projected deficit in

_

9

1 the Economic Self Sufficiency Services Program

2 Office.

3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

4 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Second.

5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

6 Without objection, it's approved.

7 MS. ARDUIN: Item 7, I recommend approval

8 of a transfer of General Revenue

9 appropriations and approval of an information

10 technology project for the Department of

11 Children and Family Services. This is to

12 purchase digital cameras to take pictures of

13 children in care.

14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

17 Without objection, it's approved.

18 MS. ARDUIN: Item 8, I recommended

19 approval of a transfer of General Revenue

20 appropriations for the Department of Community

21 Affairs for land use and transportation

22 planning.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Seconded.

25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

_

10

1 Without objection, it's approved.

2 MS. ARDUIN: Item 9, I recommend approval

3 of a transfer of General Revenue

4 appropriations for the Department of Labor and

5 Employment Security for the Public Relations

6 Commission.

7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.

8 MS. ARDUIN: I'm sorry, Public Employees

9 Relations Commission.

10 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.

11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Second.

12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

13 Without objection, it's approved.

14 MS. ARDUIN: Item 10, I recommend

15 approval of a transfer of General Revenue

16 appropriations for the Parole Commission for

17 the parole adjudication services.

18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

21 Without objection, it's approved.

22 MS. ARDUIN: Item 11, I recommend

23 approval of a transfer of General Revenue

24 appropriations for the Department of State for

25 the Division of Elections to reimburse

_

11

1 counties for the cost of special elections

2 held during the fiscal year, 1998/99.

3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Motion.

4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.

5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

6 Without objection, it's approved.

7 MS. ARDUIN: Final Item 12, I recommend

8 approval of a transfer of General Revenue

9 appropriations for the Department of State

10 from the Division of Library and Information

11 Services to the Division of Cultural Affairs.

12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Motion.

13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Second.

14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

15 Without objection, it's approved.

16 Thank you, Donna.

17 MS. ARDUIN: Thanks.

18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Now, we just transferred

19 monies ranging from something like $20,000 --

20 which I've never understood why we would have

21 to get down to that detail; and maybe that

22 will change later -- to 35 million, which

23 seems appropriate that we would know about.

24 (The Administration Commission agenda was

concluded.)

25 *

_

12

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Fred Dickinson,

2 Department of Highway Safety And Motor

3 Vehicles, can you give us like a 30-second

4 briefing on what you do? Maybe can you turn

5 the microphone around and --

6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: He may not

7 need that long.

8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Is this the one

9 he used to head up? He knows this one.

10 MR. DICKINSON: Governor and Cabinet,

11 it's a pleasure to be here. I'd like to

12 commend them for taking the show on the road.

13 I'd like for you to know that as the

14 Department of Highway Safety And Motor

15 Vehicles agency head, we oversee the driver

16 license division, the Florida Highway Patrol,

17 all your tag and title, mobile home

18 inspection, things of that nature.

19 And I'd also like to say that, even

20 though you only see us in this setting maybe

21 once in a millennium, we're here for you 24

22 hours a day. Our troopers are on the road 24

23 hours a day. Our driver license facilities

24 are open all the time.

25 And we work with your local tax

_

13

1 collector, who unfortunately takes all the

2 money for the State, but he does provide a

3 very valuable service for us here in Duval

4 County for your motor vehicles.

5 Governor, I'd also like to say that even

6 though this item is being deferred today, this

7 is one of our emissions counties, where you

8 have to have an emissions. And I would like

9 to say that your air is getting cleaner,

10 notwithstanding some of the fires and other

11 problems we've had the last couple of years,

12 but we're certainly happy about that.

13 And you also enjoy a larger manufacturing

14 base than some of the other cities that are in

15 the emissions program. So it's good that the

16 air is cleaning up. We're very proud of that.

17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the

18 minutes.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Anything further?

20 There's a motion on the minutes.

21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Without objection, it's

23 approved.

24 Item 2.

25 MR. DICKINSON: Item 2 is requesting

_

14

1 approval of our quarterly report for the

2 period ending March 1999.

3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

6 Without objection -- could you make --

7 could you -- again, I apologize to the

8 Cabinet, but I -- you may -- if you could

9 describe some of the items in the report

10 that --

11 MR. DICKINSON: Yes.

12 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- relate to how

13 customers -- how citizens will benefit from

14 this pretty large investment in capital and

15 new technology.

16 MR. DICKINSON: We -- I assume you're

17 talking about our tax collector effort here.

18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.

19 MR. DICKINSON: We're redoing our entire

20 Florida realtime vehicle information system.

21 It is -- not been without some problems and

22 delays, as is any new computer input, but we

23 are up to about -- close to 50 percent of all

24 the transactions are now on the new system.

25 We've got a drop-dead day of September 30. So

_

15

1 we're moving much better than we did, say, six

2 to eight weeks ago.

3 Some of our tax collectors are spending a

4 little more money. And we'll probably be

5 coming to you through Donna for some relief

6 for some of the smaller counties that are

7 having to provide overtime for their people to

8 get up to speed.

9 We are in about 270 locations. I

10 would -- right now we're doing about 50

11 percent of the business. We should be -- you

12 know, that should increase ten percent a month

13 or a little faster. Hopefully, we'll get

14 there by September. So we're encouraged right

15 now.

16 Unfortunately, today somebody zapped a

17 T-1 line coming here to Jacksonville. So I

18 was told this morning -- called right there

19 when we were in breakfast -- that the T-1 line

20 was down. That's the big line that carries

21 all of our information back and forth.

22 And I'm sure all of your systems -- I

23 think Tim's got the only redundant T-1 system

24 in state government right now. We found that

25 out the last time it went down. So we're

_

16

1 exploring the option of going to some

2 redundancy there so -- so we won't be down.

3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think it might

4 be worthwhile, because we are out of the

5 capital, if Fred could go through his -- maybe

6 the highlights of the quarterly reports so

7 people would get an opportunity to hear what

8 the quarterly report really is, as opposed to

9 just moving it and seconding it.

10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sure.

11 MR. DICKINSON: Governor, the quarterly

12 report really -- the highlights are in our

13 summary. We serviced about -- and this is a

14 three-month quarter, January through March of

15 last year. We serviced about 1.5 million

16 customers in our driver license offices. And

17 that converts to about 28,000 a day.

18 For those of you, like Sheriff Campbell,

19 who needs some votes from time to time, that's

20 a lot of people coming in the door. And we

21 have improved our waiting time from a high of

22 several hours years ago to -- we're down in

23 the 13-minute range now. We're up a little

24 bit this quarter over last quarter. We'll be

25 working on that.

_

17

1 We began implementation of our

2 FRVIS 2,000, which I just related to you.

3 We're -- we've done over a million

4 transactions currently. And we are now in all

5 67 counties, over 200 sites.

6 Our organ donation sign-up program, we

7 signed up almost 70,000 donors last quarter.

8 It's one of the hotter programs in the nation.

9 I know the Governor has been a big

10 supporter of that through Agency for Health

11 Care and the Highway Safety. We sign them up,

12 and -- and that's where the data base is

13 housed. Of course, they do go to family

14 before anything is done.

15 We have 18 county tax collectors now that

16 are providing driver license services. So

17 it's a one-stop shop for your tags and your

18 driver license.

19 Incidentally, our FLOW Mobile will be

20 outside today for Governor's Day. And that

21 can provide any driver license services for

22 anyone, other than a road test.

23 We inspected some 1,655 auto dealer

24 records for compliance with established

25 standards and laws. We also issued 3,700

_

18

1 dealer and manufacturer licenses. That's up

2 1,000 over the previous quarter last year.

3 We issued 517,000 new and used vehicle

4 and vessel titles; processed another 719,000

5 title transfers; issued 312 actions to

6 suspend, revoke or cancel driving privileges

7 for either DUI, point violations and of course

8 insurance. We inspected over 1.2 million

9 vehicles last quarter with regard to the

10 emissions request, requirements in those six

11 counties that are currently having the

12 inspections.

13 We issued 15,370 roadside suspensions for

14 suspected DUI or impairment for unlawful blood

15 alcohol content, failure to support -- failure

16 to submit to a sobriety test.

17 We issued 296 road suspensions to those

18 under age 21 for .02 violations. That's the

19 zero tolerance law that was passed several

20 years ago. And quite frankly, we were

21 surprised at some of the things that passed in

22 that law. Zero tolerance was one of them.

23 Another one was the graduated license to

24 keep the youngsters off the road. We've cut

25 the facilities by 66 percent for those --

_

19

1 during those hours. Our legislature always

2 says, "Well, Fred, you've taken them off the

3 road; of course those statistics are going to

4 drop."

5 And I said, "Senator, that's the point.

6 Those kids do not need to be out on the road

7 between the hours of midnight and 6:00 a.m."

8 And that's exactly what we've done.

9 Law enforcement has not been overzealous

10 in the way they've approached that law. We're

11 very pleased with that. We have not heard the

12 complaints. And it's -- and it's working.

13 The Florida Highway Patrol picked up the

14 pace a little bit. We were up about 15

15 percent in our DUI arrests just last quarter.

16 In fact, our DUI -- all of our activity has

17 been substantially improved in the last year

18 in the Florida Highway Patrol. So we're

19 getting back to our mission, which is -- which

20 is safety on our highways, Governor.

21 We arrested 1,277 individuals for felony

22 violations. And I'm sure the General and all

23 of you are aware, crime has spilled out on our

24 streets and obviously in our schools and

25 everywhere else around here. So,

_

20

1 unfortunately, we are in the business of

2 apprehending these criminals on the highway,

3 but in one quarter we've got almost 1,300

4 people for felony violations on our highways.

5 So that just tells you that it's on the

6 highways; it's on the back roads; it's

7 everywhere.

8 And I want to thank you, Governor and

9 Cabinet, for the support you've given us. The

10 legislature followed your lead with some new

11 troopers, so hopefully we can get a class

12 going here this summer. And I'm assuming

13 facts not in evidence, because I know you've

14 got some action to do later this week, but

15 thank you for your support there.

16 The other collection in this -- I know

17 Larry Fuchs is coming up behind me, but we did

18 collect 320 million dollars last quarter.

19 Most of our money, the first 75 million, goes

20 to education, and then the rest of the money

21 goes to the Department of Transportation for

22 the primary trust fund.

23 But we are, I think, the Number 2 agency

24 behind the Department of Revenue for

25 collections. It's not always a pleasant

_

21

1 thing, but those things have to -- have to

2 happen for us to run the government. And

3 we're pleased to do it.

4 And I want to say also to our sister

5 agency, Larry has been very helpful -- from

6 the Department of Revenue. They helped us in

7 our collections and many of our areas where we

8 needed it. We're not experts in that area, to

9 say the least.

10 And also, they provide service for us;

11 they take all of our mail and driver license

12 renewals and process them for us. And we

13 appreciate that. And I think we work with all

14 your agencies in one respect or another, and

15 that's certainly helpful. And I'd like to

16 thank you for that.

17 Governor, that would be our Item 2.

18 Item 3 would -- we would recommend the

19 appointment of the following doctors to

20 four-year terms on our Department of Highway

21 Safety And Motor Vehicle Medical Advisory

22 Board.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

25 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a

_

22

1 second.

2 Without objection, it's approved.

3 MR. DICKINSON: Those doctors,

4 incidentally, they're about -- 17, I believe,

5 now are on the Board. They will review

6 medical review cases, people who may suffer

7 seizures, things of that nature, that are

8 reported to us as medically unable or unfit to

9 drive. And we will submit that to the Board.

10 And they will judge their competency and

11 usually require them to take a test, but as

12 soon as they get their medical records in

13 order, they proceed down that road.

14 Item 4 --

15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to defer.

16 MR. DICKINSON: -- we have a deferral

17 till the next Cabinet meeting. That

18 concludes --

19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

20 MR. DICKINSON: -- our agenda.

21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

22 Thank you, Fred.

23 MR. DICKINSON: Thank you, Governor.

24 (The Highway Safety And Motor Vehicles

agenda was concluded.)

25 *

_

23

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Department of Revenue.

2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the

3 minutes.

4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

5 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a

6 second.

7 Without objection, it's approved.

8 Item 2, Larry, do you want to describe

9 just briefly what the illustrious Department

10 of Revenue does --

11 MR. FUCHS: Well, thank you, Governor.

12 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- other than collect our

13 money, take our money from us and give it to

14 us so we can spend it for people.

15 MR. FUCHS: Well, actually, I guess we

16 fund all state government. And all these

17 things that people think are positive about

18 government -- somebody has to pay the bill.

19 And there's kind an intellectual

20 disconnect between the things you get from

21 government and the dollars that are usually

22 used to pay for it.

23 The Department of Revenue has three

24 primary functions, the first of which is

25 property tax administration. What we do is

_

24

1 oversee the efforts of the property appraisers

2 in all 67 counties in the state to ensure that

3 property taxation is fair and equitable across

4 county lines.

5 We don't supervise, necessarily, the

6 appraisal within an individual county, but we

7 want to make sure that Nassau County and Duval

8 County and Leon County all have approximately

9 the same level of taxation, so that no

10 citizens of Florida are unfairly advantaged or

11 disadvantaged.

12 We also handle child support enforcement.

13 That's a project, a program, that was given to

14 the Department of Revenue approximately five

15 years ago. And in that period of time,

16 although the case numbers have dropped

17 slightly to just below a million cases in the

18 state of Florida, we have increased

19 collections by about 65 percent. There's a

20 long way to go in child support enforcement,

21 but there has been a dramatic increase in

22 those collections.

23 In tax administration, general tax

24 administration, we process about 90 million

25 dollars a day, 90 million dollars a day. But

_

25

1 I'm very proud to say that almost 98 percent

2 of that money comes in voluntarily.

3 The businesses of the state of Florida --

4 and we heard earlier from NFIB. The

5 businesses of the state of Florida are our

6 partners in tax collection. And a very tiny

7 percentage has to come in as the result of

8 enforcement action and some of the stories we

9 always seem to hear, as opposed to the

10 voluntary efforts that do so well.

11 Item 2, Governor, is a request for

12 approval and authority to file with the

13 Secretary of State amendments and rule

14 repeals -- another thing that is positive that

15 is done by the Cabinet -- to Rule

16 Chapters 12-25, 12A-1, 12B-8 and 12D-13.

17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

18 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Second.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

20 Without objection, it's approved.

21 MR. FUCHS: Any questions?

22 Thank you.

23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Larry.

24 (The Department of Revenue agenda was

concluded.)

25 *

_

26

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: The State Board of

2 Education.

3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the

4 minutes.

5 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Second.

6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

7 Without objection, it's approved.

8 MR. PIERSON: Item 1 is a policy

9 discussion on postsecondary remediation. It's

10 for information only.

11 The first speaker is Dr. Bill Proctor.

12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Before we do that, I'd

13 like to ask the Commissioner to say what the

14 Board of Education does and kind of describe

15 some of the policy considerations that we've

16 done this year at the request of Commissioner

17 Nelson, so that we -- just let people know

18 what we're doing here.

19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Okay. Thank

20 you, Governor. The Commissioner of Education

21 is the agency head for the Department of

22 Education that basically oversees K through

23 12, kindergarten through 12th grade, funding

24 and rules for all of the counties that deal

25 with educating their children. And each

_

27

1 county is its own separate Board of Education.

2 And so the State Board of Education is

3 the policy maker for the Department of

4 Education. And we attempt in the department

5 to bring issues of statewide interest to the

6 Board, because we feel that having them

7 discussed and noticed by the top elected

8 officials in this state is a very important

9 way to keep education at the forefront and set

10 the policy that we think is so important for

11 our children in this state.

12 We in the Department of Education also

13 house the Board of Regents in our building and

14 also the Board of Community Colleges. But

15 they, of course, are separate boards appointed

16 by the Governor. And those appointees are

17 approved by this board also.

18 We approve all the rules the Department

19 of Education has in regard to our education in

20 the state of Florida. And we bring those

21 rules to the Cabinet at our bimonthly Cabinet

22 meetings.

23 We have attempted to spend a little time

24 with each one of these Cabinet meetings at the

25 request of Commissioner Nelson, and I fully

_

28

1 agree, having been on this Cabinet six years

2 in the past. As often as we see an issue --

3 and we try to do a Cabinet meeting -- to bring

4 these issues in education to the Cabinet so

5 that they're able to know and recognize --

6 some of the issues that we've brought to the

7 Cabinet have been things like seat belts in

8 school buses. We've brought graduation rates.

9 We've talked about FCAT scores, Florida rights

10 scores, how well our students across the state

11 are doing in those.

12 We will be bringing things like the

13 grading of schools. When, in fact, that

14 becomes the law, we will be announcing with

15 the Cabinet how our schools across the state

16 are graded, based on the new law that is

17 expected to be signed in the next few weeks.

18 And so that's pretty much where we are.

19 And today's policy discussion is on

20 post-secondary remediation. What we're doing

21 here is, we're going to have some speakers and

22 talk about how much it costs and exactly where

23 we are in regards to those students who have

24 graduated from high school and have gone into

25 our post-secondary community colleges or

_

29

1 university system and what's basically needed

2 in regards to those students to show up.

3 And we have -- I think Bill Proctor is

4 going to make that presentation.

5 Dr. Proctor.

6 DR. PROCTOR: Thank you. Governor,

7 Commissioner, members of the Cabinet, today we

8 provide you with an overview of remedial

9 education in our state.

10 In your materials is an article by

11 Breneman and Haarlow, which frames the issue

12 of remedial very well. The authors correctly

13 note that there are really two types of

14 students that are involved in remedial

15 education.

16 One are recent high school grads -- which

17 this is truly remedial -- when they go into

18 post-secondary and need help. But the second

19 group of students are students who are older

20 students, may not have even graduated from

21 high school, gone back and got a GED. And

22 those students may be seeing materials really

23 for the first time.

24 The National Center for Public Policy and

25 Higher Education found that 80 percent of the

_

30

1 students in Florida who need remedial

2 education are not prior-year high school

3 grads. And that's very important to keep in

4 mind. But they're older students who need to

5 brush up on their skills, mainly mathematics,

6 before entering mainstream higher education.

7 In Florida all of our community colleges

8 and one university do remedial education.

9 With respect to our universities, this past

10 legislative session, the state board -- the

11 Board of Regents was asked to study the

12 appropriateness of remedial education in the

13 university system. This has become an issue

14 nationally.

15 A few observations before we hear from

16 our other presenters. The problem we are here

17 to discuss today, simply stated, the incidents

18 of remediation among recent Florida public

19 high school graduates is too high and it isn't

20 getting any better.

21 According to the most recent readiness

22 report, which you got about two Cabinet

23 meetings ago, our public high school grads

24 who -- over 40 percent of our public high

25 school grads who enter higher education the

_

31

1 next year require at least one remedial

2 course.

3 The break down, eight percent of the

4 students entering the university system need

5 remediation; 60 percent of the students

6 entering the community college system need

7 remediation.

8 Among Florida's public community

9 colleges, remediation is on the rise. In

10 '86/'87, remediation accounted for 87,000

11 full-time equivalent -- this is how we count;

12 these aren't real students; this is a

13 numerical count by enrollment -- or 63 percent

14 of the total enrollment. By '96/'97, there

15 were 15,000 FTE students needing remedial.

16 But to put this into context, that's 6.3

17 percent, and it jumped to 7.9 percent. We had

18 overall growth in higher education, so it's

19 not as dramatic as it sounds, but it is

20 something we need to pay attention to.

21 The higher incidents of students being

22 placed in remedial education has negative

23 repercussions: One, for students, because it

24 takes them a longer time to finish. It costs

25 them a lot of money.

_

32

1 Two, it has a negative impact on

2 institutions, because you have to have more

3 courses taught for these students.

4 And, three, not the least of which, is

5 the cost to the state.

6 Nationally, though, there is not a

7 consistent definition of remedial. We're

8 fortunate in Florida. We use the single entry

9 test. We have defined remedial, institution

10 to institution. You may go to another state,

11 and they may tell you, "We don't do any

12 remedial," but what they're counting for

13 college credit is what we would call remedial.

14 So when you're making interstate comparisons,

15 you need to be careful.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Where do we stand

17 compared to other states in terms of our

18 standards and what we accept as nonremedial?

19 DR. PROCTOR: There are no national

20 standards, you know. We're a leader in having

21 a single test. So we're actually what other

22 states are looking towards as far as saying,

23 "Okay, below this line on this test, that is

24 remedial." So we don't really have any good

25 national comparisons.

_

33

1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And I might add

2 that having the same test in all the

3 institutions is something that took a while to

4 get to. And we're now just there.

5 Prior to, each community college sort of

6 did their own thing. It was very hard for us

7 to track how the high schools were doing when

8 different test results were coming from

9 different tests. And now we're able -- as you

10 got the report a few weeks ago -- able to

11 track individual students and go back to those

12 high schools and to the different school

13 districts and say, you know, here's what's

14 happening to those people that have graduated

15 from your schools in regards to their ability

16 to get into and readiness for college.

17 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Governor, may I?

18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Please.

19 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Do we base this --

20 did I understand you -- on a single test --

21 DR. PROCTOR: Yes.

22 COMMISSIONER NELSON: -- as to the

23 students' readiness?

24 DR. PROCTOR: It's a college placement

25 test, CPT. It's given by all of our community

_

34

1 colleges and universities; although, if you

2 score high enough on the SAT, there's what's

3 called a concordance. You don't need to take

4 the test.

5 COMMISSIONER NELSON: How much is that?

6 DR. PROCTOR: I'm sorry?

7 COMMISSIONER NELSON: On the SAT? What's

8 the score?

9 DR. PROCTOR: I don't...

10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: 97 (sic).

11 DR. PROCTOR: What?

12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: 97.

13 COMMISSIONER NELSON: 97.

14 DR. PROCTOR: It's 970, which is about

15 the entry -- a little bit above the entry

16 level for the university system.

17 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Did I understand

18 you to say that 60 percent of the high school

19 graduates going into the community colleges

20 have to have remedial education?

21 DR. PROCTOR: Yes.

22 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Now, tell me about

23 the program at Santa Fe Community College that

24 has apparently dropped that percentage

25 dramatically.

_

35

1 DR. PROCTOR: David Armstrong, from the

2 State Board of Community Colleges, is going to

3 be one of our next presenters. And I'm sure

4 some of the questions will be answered by the

5 presenters that follow. I don't have that

6 information. Maybe David can provide you with

7 that.

8 Let me put it in context also, though.

9 It's not all bad news. Remediation has always

10 been around. Harvard had tutors for students

11 who were ill prepared back in the 18th

12 century. So remediation is not new. It's

13 really a core function of higher education.

14 The question nationally is: Where do you do

15 remediation?

16 The cost of remediation is relatively

17 small. Nationally, there was one billion

18 dollars -- and I know it sounds odd to say a

19 billion dollars is a small amount of money. A

20 billion out of the 115 billion spent in higher

21 education was spent on remediation.

22 In Florida, in the article that I gave

23 you, it was 57 million dollars, or 2.3 percent

24 of the overall higher education budget. So

25 the cost of remediation, you need to put in

_

36

1 context.

2 And, really, when you think about it,

3 it's low, given the alternatives.

4 Alternatives to remediation are:

5 Unemployment, low-wage jobs, welfare

6 participation and incarceration.

7 According to the Bureau of Labor

8 Statistics, the jobs with the greatest growth

9 between 1994 and 2005 will be those that

10 require at least an associate degree. So the

11 question is not how do we eradicate remedial

12 programs from our post secondary campuses, but

13 how can middle schools, high schools and the

14 various post-secondary sectors work together

15 across institutional boundaries in new and

16 inventive ways to ensure that students with

17 academic deficiencies are addressed in a

18 manner that's timely and cost effective for

19 the student and the state.

20 One case in point that I know of, a

21 community college has an intensive summer

22 program for students who are identified in

23 their junior year as being deficient for

24 college-level courses. They offer a

25 three-week program prior to their senior year.

_

37

1 And those students have reduced the incidents

2 needed of remediation in those high schools.

3 This is a type of program that we really

4 need to look forward to, early intervention,

5 shared responsibilities, incentives that are

6 built for the student and cost savings to the

7 state.

8 Our next presenters will give you

9 information on how remedial is being done in

10 our state, how effective it is and some

11 strategies to improve remediation. We have

12 with us presenters David Armstrong from the

13 State Board of Community Colleges, two private

14 providers, Bob Hackworth and Marty Vespo, and

15 Dr. Paul Kinser from Valencia Community

16 College.

17 COMMISSIONER NELSON: Governor, may I ask

18 a question?

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, please.

20 COMMISSIONER NELSON: And I can address

21 this to anyone, you, maybe, Tom, anyone. As

22 we increase the requirements on the FCAT so

23 that the score required to ultimately graduate

24 from high school is higher and higher, can we

25 expect that that deplorable percentage of 60

_

38

1 percent of the high school graduates entering

2 community colleges will decrease --

3 DR. PROCTOR: Yes.

4 COMMISSIONER NELSON: -- that need

5 remediation?

6 DR. PROCTOR: Yes.

7 COMMISSIONER NELSON: And what is your

8 time line and your projection for that, and

9 what is the percentage reduction?

10 DR. PROCTOR: I don't think there has

11 been done a projection on what percent will be

12 reduced, but as those scores go up, the

13 students will be more ready for college. You

14 know, the initiatives this year, the

15 initiatives last year, will really allow

16 students that graduate from high school to be

17 more ready.

18 Last year there was a college-ready

19 diploma. And when you look at those students,

20 they're really going through the track that

21 prepares them for college. Our commission,

22 the Post-secondary Education Planning

23 Commission, in our last master plan, said we

24 ought to encourage all of our students to get

25 the college-ready diploma so it will reduce

_

39

1 the incidents of remediation. But you're

2 still going to have remediation for the older

3 returning student.

4 GOVERNOR BUSH: General?

5 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes, Governor.

6 I'm just trying to understand, Dr. Proctor,

7 the 60 percent figure. I was under the

8 impression that approximately two-thirds of

9 that 60 percent are actually adult folks

10 returning to post-secondary education.

11 DR. PROCTOR: David will get into that,

12 but when you look at the recent high school

13 grads that are enrolled, there's a bigger --

14 60 percent of those need some remediation.

15 But the total group of students being

16 remediated is heavily weighted, about 60

17 percent of older returning students.

18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think it's a

20 coincidence that the numbers are the same.

21 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yeah, must be.

22 Thank you.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Let me just

24 mention one thing. One of the concerns we

25 have is that we're operating at about a

_

40

1 50-percent success rate. And that -- you

2 know, the remediation is one thing, which, you

3 know, we're very glad that we're offering and

4 giving people an opportunity.

5 One of the concerns that I have is that

6 we're operating at a 50-percent success rate.

7 So that's something I hope we're going to talk

8 about when you guys come up and speak. Thank

9 you.

10 DR. PROCTOR: David?

11 GOVERNOR BUSH: One other thing, I think,

12 Commissioner. One of the consequences will be

13 that young people graduating from high school

14 will not need the remedial courses, because

15 the standards are higher, but there will be

16 a -- one of the immediate consequences of the

17 ending of social promotion and -- in the

18 higher standards is a recognition of this

19 problem earlier on, which is where we need to

20 be dealing with it, frankly.

21 I mean with all due respect to the great

22 work of the community colleges and the

23 universities and the private providers do,

24 this is a third-grade issue, not a

25 first-year-in-college issue. And if kids are

_

41

1 prepared to learn early enough and we

2 eliminate the idea that they can be passed

3 along because they've grown in age

4 chronologically -- you know, by showing up,

5 but they haven't learned a year's worth of

6 knowledge, ultimately that's the best way of

7 dealing with this and the most cost-effective

8 way.

9 That's the end of the paid political

10 announcement.

11 MR. ARMSTRONG: Governor and Cabinet

12 members, thank you. I'm David Armstrong,

13 executive director of the Florida Community

14 College System. I want to apologize to the

15 audience, first of all, for this presentation

16 that you're not going to be able to see. But

17 we do have some hard copies we'll pass out to

18 them later. And perhaps one of the cameras

19 can focus on that for the audience to see.

20 There we go. We're starting to get it

21 in. I think you also have paper copies in

22 front of you.

23 Let me thank you for bringing up this

24 incredibly important policy issue that comes

25 up frequently and will continue to come up.

_

42

1 We need continuous discussion on this issue,

2 as Bill said. Since 1636, when Harvard opened

3 its doors as the first higher education

4 learning institution in America, we have had

5 remediation issues. We will continue to have

6 some level of remediation issues.

7 What we're talking about today is how

8 well are we doing and how can we improve even

9 more. I'm going to start by just giving you

10 an overview of the some of the issues that

11 maybe will answer some of the basic questions

12 that have been asked.

13 If you look at the total state

14 appropriations to the Florida community

15 college system, approximately 725 million

16 dollars in the '97/'98 appropriations act,

17 only four percent, 4.3 percent of that, goes

18 to support the remediation or college prep

19 readiness kinds of programs that we're talking

20 about. That equates to 31 million dollars of

21 state-supported funds.

22 Now, in addition to the state-supported

23 funds, there are other resources that are used

24 by the colleges to support these programs.

25 There's a total of 63 million dollars that

_

43

1 goes into being spent on these programs. Much

2 of that comes from student fees; 27 million of

3 that 63 million comes from student fees.

4 There's a myth that remediation students

5 or college prep students don't have to pay

6 fees. They have to pay fees just like college

7 credit students do. That accounts for 27

8 million. There are other revenues that the

9 institutions use, whether it's federal funds,

10 whatever.

11 Of the 31 million in state funds,

12 approximately 19 million of those 31 million

13 dollars goes to support the adult students who

14 are in the program, those who have been out of

15 high school for more than three years, perhaps

16 have forgotten their algebra skills. And

17 you've got to have basic algebra skills if

18 you're going to be able to pass the CPT, the

19 college placement test. Otherwise, you'll end

20 up in a remediation course in mathematics.

21 Only 12 million of that 63 million is

22 state-supported dollars for recent high school

23 graduates, those that have been out of high

24 school for the last three years.

25 We have not had in the community college

_

44

1 system any base work load funding for any

2 increases in the remediation programs since

3 the '91/'92 budget year from the legislature.

4 The way we go about funding institutions now

5 is based on performance, which is the way

6 we're moving all of our funding for the

7 community college system.

8 We provide incentives. If you help them

9 complete the course, the remediation course,

10 and if they go on into the associate in arts

11 degree program and they get their associate in

12 arts degree program, you get some additional

13 funding.

14 This year we had eight million -- this

15 past year we had eight million dollars

16 appropriated by the legislature. Of that

17 amount, a total of $730,000 went to

18 institutions for students who started off in

19 remedial programs and got an AA degree.

20 GOVERNOR BUSH: David, that's -- can

21 we -- this is the -- Senator Horne is the --

22 wasn't he the architect of this?

23 MR. ARMSTRONG: Absolutely.

24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Being from Jacksonville,

25 I thought it would be appropriate to pay a

_

45

1 little tribute to him.

2 MR. ARMSTRONG: Thank you.

3 GOVERNOR BUSH: In fact, this department

4 and the Department of Revenue are really the

5 leaders in performance-based budgeting in the

6 state.

7 You guys are way out ahead of everybody

8 else and deserve a lot of credit for accepting

9 responsibility for the results rather than the

10 inputs. And if all government operated this

11 way, it would be a lot more efficient for

12 people, I think.

13 MR. ARMSTRONG: One of the solutions,

14 Governor, potential solutions, is to look at

15 some other sectors of education where

16 additional kinds of incentives might be

17 provided. We can show you very clear data,

18 since we have been using this performance

19 incentive funding program, of increases in

20 productivity and performance.

21 These are a few of the basic information

22 bullets that tell you why we have to have

23 these remedial programs. In the state of

24 Florida we currently have approximately 24

25 percent of our adult population who are

_

46

1 functionally illiterate. "Functionally

2 illiterate" means that you cannot read and

3 comprehend a job application and fill it out

4 well; you can't do basic job skills programs.

5 Our incredibly robust economy right now has

6 all of our business and industry knocking on

7 your doors and my door to prepare people for

8 the jobs that they have open.

9 Yesterday you may have seen in the

10 Florida Times Union -- we didn't promote this;

11 it was just coincidentally good timing -- a

12 great article on students, adults, who are in

13 the workplace going back to school to get

14 functional literacy.

15 In Duval County, according to this

16 article, 46 percent of the adults in northeast

17 Florida are functionally illiterate. They

18 can't read, comprehend or fill out a job

19 application or a job description. So we have

20 tremendous demands on our work place here.

21 These programs are designed to help with that.

22 The approach that we take in our

23 system -- you know very well about the open

24 door in our community college system. Let me

25 tell you what the open door is not. It does

_

47

1 not mean that any student can walk in the door

2 of one of our 28 community colleges and

3 immediately go into college credit programs.

4 It means first they've got to have a high

5 school diploma or a GED. That is not the case

6 in every state. Very few people realize that.

7 It secondly means that those students who

8 have a high school diploma or a GED are going

9 to take the CPT, and they're going to meet a

10 cut-off score that you, the Cabinet, set. And

11 we have been raising, consistently, that bar

12 of standards for the last couple of years. If

13 they don't meet those cut-off scores, then

14 they are referred into one of three different

15 areas for remediation.

16 What we're talking about here, as Bill

17 said very clearly, is preparation for both

18 college credit courses and workplace skills.

19 In many cases remediation is a misnomer. In

20 many cases students have never had the

21 appropriate high school courses that they need

22 to be able to go to college credit. In fact,

23 the majority of Florida's high school students

24 have not had the courses that they need to go

25 in and pass the CPT and go on to college

_

48

1 credit courses.

2 So remediation implies you're doing over

3 something. Many of these students never had

4 it. So college credit is giving them their

5 first exposure to algebra in many cases, which

6 is a requirement in the state of Florida, a

7 much higher standard, Governor -- you asked

8 about standards earlier -- than most other

9 states.

10 Emory, a fine private institution in

11 Atlanta you're all familiar with, does not

12 require college Algebra of its students who

13 are not in science or mathematics kinds of

14 programs. We in community colleges and

15 universities require college algebra for all

16 of our students. So algebra is a big issue

17 here, and many other courses too.

18 Sixty-five percent of our students failed

19 the placement test in at least one of the

20 different areas. And we're working on a

21 variety of different strategies through our

22 strategic planning partner, with our local

23 high schools.

24 Commissioner Nelson asked about the

25 Santa Fe program. A great deal of the success

_

49

1 there is based on partnerships with local high

2 schools to determine early on what their real

3 deficiencies are -- 10th, 11th and 12th

4 grade -- and then have summer programs to

5 assist in that.

6 Now, let's look at the population. Let's

7 take a snapshot cohort of students. These

8 students started at our doorsteps in the year

9 of '93. Five years later, '98, we do a

10 snapshot. Where are they? What's happened to

11 them?

12 Thirty-five thousand of them arrived in

13 '93. Twenty-two thousand of them needed some

14 basic skills and remediation courses. Only

15 12,000 of them were ready to go on into

16 college courses, college credit courses. That

17 22,000 represents 65 percent of that entire

18 class in '93 that arrived that needed some

19 level of remediation.

20 Now, let me tell you something that

21 should really concern us all. Forty percent

22 of these students need only math. That's the

23 algebra issue. Six percent need only reading.

24 Six percent need only writing. Those are the

25 three component areas. However, 26 percent

_

50

1 need at least two of those areas. Another 22

2 percent need all three.

3 One of the biggest challenges to keeping

4 these students enrolled and helping them

5 succeed is they arrive and they think they're

6 going into college credit courses. They're

7 immediately told, "You're not going into

8 college credit courses. You're going into

9 remediation."

10 Many of them never sign up for a course.

11 They're discouraged by that. That's a

12 challenge we've always got to work on.

13 Sixty-seven percent of the total

14 population -- General Miller, back to your

15 question. Sixty-seven percent are returning

16 adults who have been out of high school more

17 than three years. Thirty-three percent just

18 recently graduated from high school with a

19 diploma.

20 Understand, they were handed a high

21 school diploma within the last three years.

22 They show up at our doorsteps, and they're not

23 ready to go into college credit courses.

24 GOVERNOR BUSH: David, do you think that

25 the change the legislature has -- I'm not sure

_

51

1 if I've signed this yet, so -- I don't

2 remember, but if the legislature's bill that

3 changed the course -- the payment, the pricing

4 of the courses that were remedial courses that

5 they don't pass the first time, is that an

6 effort to deal with this -- at first glance

7 people don't even apply because -- do you

8 think that will work?

9 MR. ARMSTRONG: Absolutely, Governor. I

10 think a number of things that you and the

11 legislature did this year will --

12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Did I sign that bill

13 already?

14 MR. ARMSTRONG: Yes, you did --

15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.

16 MR. ARMSTRONG: -- the remediation bill.

17 You sure did. Thank you. I've got that on

18 here somewhere, Governor.

19 The readiness class -- now, let's talk a

20 little bit about what happens to those

21 students. Once they're in the remediation

22 courses, what do we do with them?

23 The first class that they're in, the

24 success rates for remediation, mathematics, 70

25 percent of them complete the first course,

_

52

1 et cetera.

2 Precollege skills group, that is the

3 remediation students. How many of them

4 succeed five years later? Thirty-seven

5 percent.

6 Now, success is defined here as they

7 either graduate with an AA degree, they -- and

8 they transfer onto a university or they

9 continue to be enrolled. Remember that most

10 of our students are adults. They may be

11 taking one course a semester. It sometimes

12 takes them seven to ten years to complete a

13 degree. So there are additional students

14 beyond this.

15 The precollege credit students who take

16 the remediation course and succeed in that

17 course then have just as good a chance of

18 succeeding -- which means they get their AA

19 degree and go on to a university -- as the

20 students who started off with the skills that

21 they needed did not need remediation. So we

22 think that's a very good indicator that the

23 remediation programs work and the courses

24 work.

25 Why do we lose a lot of those students?

_

53

1 The financial barriers that the Governor just

2 mentioned, until this year there was a

3 requirement that after the first attempt,

4 students had to pay the full freight of the

5 cost of the program. The Governor just signed

6 a bill passed by the legislature that allows

7 them to take the course twice for the typical

8 traditional college credit tuition rate. We

9 think that will affect about 5,000 students

10 and keep them enrolled.

11 Because of the wonderful economy we have

12 right now, many of our students are going to

13 work. They may take one course in remediation

14 and get their literacy skills up just enough,

15 and they're in a job. So we're losing a

16 number of them for not necessarily bad

17 reasons, but we do lose some, and we need to

18 continue to work on some of these issues.

19 What are some of the strategies we use?

20 College-ready curriculum, we write a letter,

21 the Commissioner, myself and the Chancellor,

22 to all 8th graders throughout this state and

23 their parents every year, telling them, "If

24 you want to succeed in college, you had better

25 take these courses."

_

54

1 The biggest predictor of whether or not

2 students are going to be able to succeed and

3 pass the CPT is what courses did they take in

4 high school. It has nothing to do with GPA's

5 or SAT scores. It is: What courses did you

6 take? If you took algebra, you're likely to

7 pass the math portion.

8 Other strategies we're working on: As

9 I've already mentioned, we're working with the

10 K-12 system; there's a lot of money in the

11 K-12 system for dropout prevention and

12 remediation reduction.

13 I would love to see the legislature --

14 and we had this proposal. It didn't pan out

15 this way. I'd love to see a requirement that

16 provides incentives for community colleges and

17 K-12 systems to work together on summer

18 programs that we already know work. And so

19 we'll continue to encourage that.

20 We also work with a number of

21 private-sector vendors. There are some here

22 today. They have incredibly good software

23 products that help students move through at

24 their own pace. And you'll hear a little bit

25 about that in just a moment.

_

55

1 In conclusion, we think this is an

2 incredibly good investment for the State. I

3 would be misleading you if I didn't say to you

4 that, just as you and everyone else in Florida

5 would like to see this problem go away -- but

6 is it always going to be with us.

7 What the real challenge for us is, is how

8 can we most efficiently and effectively reduce

9 the requirement for this, based on things that

10 are done in high schools, and how can we

11 continue to improve what we're doing.

12 Governor, I'll stop there.

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, David.

14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Governor, we

15 have some vendors that are going to speak.

16 And they're not here to speak as a commercial

17 for their products, but basically to tell us

18 what their product does, but not a commercial

19 for it.

20 MR. HACKWORTH: Hi. My name is Bob

21 Hackworth and I --

22 (Brief interruption)

23 MR. HACKWORTH: My name is Bob Hackworth.

24 And I have a company called H & H Learning

25 Systems. I appreciate, Governor,

_

56

1 Mr. Gallagher and all the members of the

2 Cabinet, this opportunity to address you.

3 I'm a little nervous, like the lady

4 before. I hope you'll bear with me.

5 Governor Bush, as I listened to your

6 inaugural address last January, I was

7 particularly impressed with what you said

8 about the principals that will guide us. You

9 said, "I want a state government that is an

10 ally, not an adversary, for positive change

11 within each community. I want to protect

12 people and not bureaucracies."

13 I hope that's part of the reason why I

14 was invited here today. And with all due

15 respect to Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Proctor, who

16 have proceeded me, I think that today so far

17 you've only heard one side of this issue. And

18 it's an important issue.

19 And that's the side they presented that

20 is meant to protect the bureaucracy. And

21 there is another side, because, while it is

22 true that many of our community college

23 students are receiving the post-secondary and

24 college education that will serve them well in

25 the future, we have a system that is

_

57

1 tragically failing most of our unprepared

2 students.

3 The remedial success rate that

4 Dr. Armstrong has presented to you today

5 completely contradicts this 1996 Senate

6 education report, this '98 OPPAGA report, and

7 every other legislative analysis and report

8 ever prepared on the effectiveness of our

9 current approach to post-secondary

10 remediation.

11 You need to find out why it is that the

12 division is now telling you that they have a

13 success rate for remedial students that's

14 almost 40 percent, and I'm up here about to

15 tell you that it's less than 15 percent, based

16 on these other reports; how, for example, the

17 OPPAGA conclude that only 31 percent of all

18 entering students succeed after five years,

19 but the division says, "No, 37 percent of our

20 remedial students and 44 percent of all of our

21 students succeed after five years."

22 That's a big difference. I want to know

23 who's right. And I hope you do too. If the

24 numbers that Mr. Armstrong are now using are

25 correct, then the colleges are doing a great

_

58

1 job, and we don't even need to be here. If,

2 however, the remedial success rate is only

3 14.5 percent, then we really do need to talk

4 about how we can improve it.

5 I brought a chart today that shows the

6 effectiveness of our community college system.

7 And it shows that for every ten entering

8 students, about half are recent high school

9 graduates. The other half are nontraditional

10 adult students. About three out of five, 60

11 percent, of the -- of the recent high school

12 graduates and four out of five of the

13 nontraditional students, takes this test and

14 fails and is placed into one or more remedial

15 courses and one or more disciplines.

16 The OPPAGA report indicates that after

17 tracking these students for five years, you

18 take these ten and you find out that only

19 three have been successful, as measured by the

20 standard of whether they graduated, earned a

21 certificate or remained enrolled in school.

22 And only one out of seven of your remedial

23 students is actually academically successful.

24 I also want to respond, if I could, to

25 this -- to what to me is a nonsensical notion

_

59

1 that these new students are not being

2 remediated, because, as is -- as was explained

3 to you, to take the CPT you do need to come

4 with a college -- I mean with a high school

5 diploma or a GED.

6 And to suggest that because, you know,

7 reading isn't taught past 8th grade and that

8 these students chose not to take high school

9 algebra, that that justifies and that explains

10 why they need basic preparation in reading,

11 writing and arithmetic, is, I think, to

12 concede that higher education has become a

13 right instead of privilege that is earned by

14 hard work. And I think that sends exactly the

15 wrong message to this group of entering

16 students, and I think contributes greatly to

17 the fact that this readiness rate is

18 declining.

19 Now, my experience with this is that two

20 years ago the legislature passed a bill that

21 included provisions intended to reduce the

22 incidents, the demands and the costs of

23 post-secondary remedial instruction. And

24 these are the facts that they used, if I

25 could, in their deliberations.

_

60

1 House Bill 55 was debated in the 1997

2 legislative session. And it -- they said that

3 81 percent of all remedial -- of all entering

4 students were projected to require at least

5 one remedial course, and that 14.5 is the

6 success rate.

7 They said that they funded 200,000 annual

8 courses per year, and that that costs about

9 60 -- 63 million dollars for the remedial

10 courses, but there was also an additional

11 250 million that those students who were

12 identified as needing remedial courses also --

13 the courses that were funded that were called

14 concurrently enrolled college level courses.

15 And that's something that they did not touch

16 upon.

17 But this student who enters needing

18 reading, he is actually allowed to enroll in

19 other college level courses. There is some

20 limitation to the type of course that he can

21 take, but if he enters needing a math

22 remediation, really, the only limitation is

23 that he can't take college algebra until he

24 completes it, but he can be in natural

25 sciences, economics, humanities, all kinds of

_

61

1 things. And what you find is that they

2 struggle oftentimes in both their remedial

3 courses and their college level courses.

4 Now, the bill that passed in '97 said

5 that the colleges must identify strategies and

6 mechanisms that would help more students pass

7 this college placement test and enter the

8 system college ready. It also said that if a

9 student failed the CPT test, they must be

10 notified and -- about and allowed access to

11 alternatives to this traditionally provided

12 community college remediation.

13 That legislation made a real lot of

14 sense, because this 12th grader could be

15 offered an on-line college prep math course

16 that would help him catch up on his math, show

17 up at the community college the following fall

18 and pass the college placement test.

19 Likewise, this single working parent could be

20 offered an alternative, more convenient and

21 flexible home study math course that would

22 meet her requirement for college prep math,

23 and she could avoid going into her campus two

24 or three times a week for evening courses that

25 are noncredit.

_

62

1 But something strange happened. I've

2 talked to many legislatures about it, but the

3 legislation was by and large ignored. In 1998

4 I asked the legislature to clarify what they

5 had pretty clearly stated the year before.

6 And that bill also became a law, but the

7 colleges continued to do business as usual.

8 And meanwhile, both the college readiness rate

9 of recent high school graduates and this low

10 success rate of remedial students continued to

11 fall.

12 Why was the legislature ignored? Perhaps

13 because the colleges earned approximately

14 one-third of their billion-dollar budget

15 offering this huge group of unprepared

16 students both remedial and college level

17 courses. And they have no incentive to

18 eliminate the need for this required

19 remediation on their campuses.

20 So my -- my position is that for 300

21 million dollars, this is Florida's return on

22 its educational investment. And that's not

23 good enough. But more importantly, Florida

24 desperately needs this group of students.

25 And there's a very substantial indirect

_

63

1 cost that has to be added to that direct cost

2 when these guys get seven-dollar-per-hour jobs

3 instead of 17- or 20-dollar-per-hour jobs.

4 So in conclusion, I think you have three

5 major questions that you must, that it's

6 essential, that you get answers to: First,

7 who is accurately representing performance

8 results and the costs of the -- of the system;

9 second, is the large proportion of remedial

10 students who fail an acceptable return on our

11 investment, or is it perhaps a fraud on both

12 the students and the taxpayers to admit them

13 when there's little or no chance of their

14 success under the colleges' guidance; and,

15 finally, what will it take to dramatically

16 improve the effectiveness of our approach to

17 post-secondary remediation, because we all

18 agree, we must, we must improve the

19 effectiveness.

20 So the policy debate is not about how; it

21 certainly isn't about who; it isn't about

22 where; and it certainly isn't about whether or

23 not we do it. But Mr. Armstrong's statements

24 about the community college being designated

25 as the best and only hope for the delivery of

_

64

1 that post-secondary education is simply not

2 true in today's education marketplace where

3 private enterprise and technology is

4 reinventing government -- reinventing

5 education at all levels and coming up with

6 much better and more cost-effective delivery

7 systems.

8 Sometimes that fact scares the

9 bureaucrats, but it offers students a very

10 expanded hope for improved quality and

11 expanded access. And I hope that at some

12 point y'all can read this report that I've

13 written. I have some recommendations. I hope

14 you give it some consideration too.

15 I thank you for this opportunity.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much. Did

17 we get a copy of the reports?

18 MR. HACKWORTH: I have some.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'd like to have one.

20 Thanks. You shouldn't have been nervous. You

21 did very well. Just like everybody that's

22 nervous when they come here, they always do

23 extraordinarily well.

24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Next we have

25 Mark Vespo for Kaplan.

_

65

1 MR. VESPO: Good morning, Governor and

2 members of the Cabinet. I'm Marty Vespo. I'm

3 the executive director for higher education

4 for Kaplan Learning Services.

5 As you can tell, this is a volatile

6 issue. And it's complicated. It's not one

7 that I think is -- lends itself to easy

8 solutions. And I'm not about to offer you any

9 easy solutions today.

10 I do think that it's a surprise often to

11 people when they talk about this that the

12 topic involves more than just recent high

13 school graduates, but the significant numbers

14 of returning adults. And that's a nationwide

15 phenomenon. That's not a Florida issue, as

16 I'm sure you know.

17 Our interest in being invited here today

18 and in being involved in this discussion stems

19 from our long history in working in

20 partnership with educators to improve student

21 success. And I'm not about to give you a

22 commercial on Kaplan by any means, but I do

23 think it might be helpful, because I'm going

24 to make some suggestions about some steps that

25 I think might make some sense in terms of some

_

66

1 of the solutions that might be pursued.

2 Just to tell you a little bit about us in

3 about ten seconds, we are an educational

4 services company. We're a division of the

5 Washington Post. We've had over three million

6 graduates in our programs, and we currently

7 partner with over 1,000 colleges and

8 universities in the country, including schools

9 in Florida.

10 That's given us some, I think,

11 experience -- over six decades -- in working

12 with students in a variety of settings and a

13 variety of ways. And I'd like to share some

14 of what we've learned over the time with you

15 in terms of some possible solutions that you

16 might want to be considering.

17 I do agree with both Dr. Proctor and

18 Dr. Armstrong, that although it's a

19 broad-based program and a broad-based issue,

20 that probably the best place to start today is

21 with recent high school graduates and with

22 students in high school today. After all,

23 that's the group of students in the segment of

24 the population that you have contact with on a

25 daily basis.

_

67

1 You've got an infrastructure set up to

2 help address the needs of those students and,

3 candidly, to have the quickest impact. I

4 think that's the place to focus, not ignoring

5 the adults. That's also very complicated, but

6 clearly you can have the greatest impact in

7 addressing the needs of students.

8 But if you do that, let me suggest some

9 things that have worked well for us, and I

10 think for others in the private sector. Most

11 of us in private business are performance

12 based. If we succeed, we continue; if we

13 don't, we're out.

14 So some of the things that we've learned

15 over the years is that it's very important to

16 have students understand what the expectations

17 are and what the goals are in any kind of a

18 program, particularly an intervention program

19 such as this. To do so, I think students need

20 to understand clearly what colleges expect of

21 them. They need an opportunity to see how

22 they stack up against those expectations, and

23 they need a clear plan to be able to improve.

24 That includes assessment. That includes

25 an opportunity to potentially tailor

_

68

1 instruction based on individual needs, and,

2 most importantly, I think it requires that

3 there be a specific end game, meaning that if

4 a student goes through a program, they have to

5 know that there are some high stakes at the

6 end, something to shoot for.

7 You've talked before about the college

8 placement test and the SAT. Those really are

9 the criteria, and that's the bar that most

10 students, and, frankly, most parents, see as

11 measuring how well students are doing. It's

12 not right for everybody, certainly, but it is

13 more or less -- you asked before, Governor,

14 about a national standard. It is, in fact,

15 the standard that most colleges and

16 universities around the country use. So

17 looking at the skills set that's embedded in

18 those tests are very important, particularly

19 if you're looking to improve students'

20 performance.

21 I think another important criteria, an

22 element in such a program, would be forming

23 partnerships between three particular groups

24 of constituents; first, the public schools and

25 the colleges. They already exist. There are

_

69

1 articulation agreements that are in place.

2 You've heard about them before. I think that

3 you can only benefit by expanding them and

4 broadening them.

5 In addition to that, the third element

6 that I think should be added is the private

7 sector. We're out there working with students

8 all the time, not just us, but others. We are

9 investing in that -- in that enterprise. It

10 only makes sense to combine the expertise that

11 exists in public education with the resources

12 that exist in the private sector for the

13 purpose of improving student performance. And

14 that's something that I would certainly

15 encourage you -- and I think what

16 Dr. Armstrong, and Furlong and Mosrie and

17 others who we've talked to, also would agree

18 with.

19 But most importantly, no matter what you

20 do, you have to have a way to measure the

21 performance. There's probably nothing worse

22 than making an investment in an approach and

23 stepping back two or three or five years later

24 and saying, "Well, how did it go?" and not

25 really knowing.

_

70

1 So you need to measure and you need to

2 determine what those goals are and how you're

3 going to collect that data and how to report

4 that. And that's something that not only we

5 but others in the private sector do all the

6 time. We're here.

7 I won't continue any longer but -- other

8 than to say that I very much appreciate the

9 opportunity to address you this morning. And

10 to the extent that it's appropriate, we'd love

11 to be involved in any type of partnership with

12 the State. Thank you.

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.

14 MR. PIERSON: Our final speaker is

15 Dr. Paul Kinser from Valencia Community

16 College.

17 DR. KINSER: Good morning. Thank you.

18 Governor, Commissioner, members of the

19 Cabinet, I'm in charge of a 10,000-student

20 campus at Valencia Community College. And

21 from me and all of those students, we

22 appreciate the opportunity to share about a

23 wonderful new partnership which is developing

24 between Valencia Community College, the Orange

25 County public school system and Academic

_

71

1 Systems, one of the vendors that you heard

2 mentioned this morning.

3 In fact, this is a three-way,

4 public/private partnership which addresses the

5 academic preparation of high school students

6 in the area of mathematics. The goal here,

7 again, is to reduce the amount of remediation

8 which will take place at the college level

9 before students arrive.

10 There is some good news, as has been

11 mentioned this morning. First of all,

12 students who move through remedial courses at

13 the community college, at least at Valencia,

14 if they're successful in those remedial

15 courses, they have a chance of being

16 successful in going further, about the

17 81-percent rate.

18 Students who begin at college level, that

19 is, without having been mandated into remedial

20 courses, are going to be successful at about

21 the 85-percent level in college-level courses,

22 not a significant difference.

23 Let me continue now and tell you about

24 this particular public/private partnership.

25 Our goal, again, is to ensure that high school

_

72

1 seniors are fully prepared to enter

2 college-level mathematics courses without the

3 need for remediation, a goal I know that we

4 all share here today.

5 Valencia has worked with this third-party

6 vendor, Academic Systems, for four years. And

7 we've measured the performance of students

8 throughout that four-year period. The results

9 of that performance have been remarkably

10 consistent. I'll share just a few with you.

11 We tracked the performance of

12 college-prep math students. During the period

13 from 1997 to 1998, we had a group of 1,487

14 students. They were using the computer course

15 ware provided by this particular vendor.

16 Those who took the course with the computer

17 software were successful in that course at the

18 59 percent rate. Those who did not use the

19 system were successful at the 52 percent rate,

20 a very clear and significant difference to us.

21 Possibly more importantly, college

22 algebra students who used this particular

23 model were successful at the 72 percent rate.

24 If they didn't use this model, they were only

25 successful at the 49 percent rate.

_

73

1 Probably the most important signal to us

2 is this: When students move from college

3 prep, or remedial mathematics, into college

4 algebra, they were successful at the 61

5 percent rate when they used this particular

6 system. They were only successful at the 52

7 percent rate when they did not use this

8 system.

9 Now, let me go forward and tell you a bit

10 about the partnership, and then I'll conclude.

11 We are very fortunate at Valencia to have some

12 outstanding faculty members who are also high

13 school mathematics teachers. They teach the

14 college remedial courses for us. They're

15 credentialed by SACS, like the rest of the

16 faculty members are.

17 They recognize that this course ware is

18 not only applicable to college prep students,

19 but also to the students that they have in

20 high school. So in recognizing the similarity

21 between high school students who, in fact,

22 come to Valencia and are continuing to be at

23 the high school level, they combine the two

24 courses into one.

25 And here's what we've done with that. We

_

74

1 have trained -- as a matter of fact, this

2 morning we're training high school teachers

3 from nine high schools in Orange County to use

4 the course ware. The result of that will be

5 to take the common course, put it in the high

6 school and then do this: Ask students to take

7 that course after they've taken the common

8 placement test, to test into the course, take

9 that with their high school teacher, and then

10 to complete that course at the level of A, B,

11 or C, just like they would if they were taking

12 it at Valencia.

13 At the end of that then, they do not need

14 remediation to come to Valencia Community

15 College, or any other community college for

16 that matter. They've completed that course,

17 and they have satisfied and learned the

18 competencies required for college-level

19 mathematics.

20 That's the partnership that we have. And

21 we are happy that -- we think that the results

22 will confirm high school seniors, in fact, do

23 have the competencies required to operate at

24 college level mathematics without the need for

25 remediation. Thank you.

_

75

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.

2 MR. PIERSON: Thank you. One concluding

3 comment, this past legislative session, the

4 legislature funded six million dollars in the

5 community -- for the community colleges, and

6 30 million dollars for K-12 for remedial

7 reduction, although the money in the end was

8 rolled into the base. That was an early

9 initiative.

10 We appreciate your time. Any of the

11 presenters would be glad to answer any

12 questions that you have. Thank you very much

13 for being interested in this issue.

14 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: As I understand

15 it, in the legislative funding, 39 million

16 dollars was appropriated for private vendors

17 to -- for remediation contract work?

18 MR. PIERSON: There was -- and maybe they

19 can -- there was six million dollars funded

20 for community colleges to work on efforts for

21 remedial reduction and 30 million for K-12 to

22 work on efforts for remedial reduction. That

23 was then rolled into their base funding. So

24 you will not -- you will not see it other than

25 that's how the money got initially put in

_

76

1 their base.

2 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: But will -- did

3 they --

4 MR. HACKWORTH: Can I -- I can probably

5 answer your question, I think, because I'm not

6 real sure you understood it. You said

7 39 million, which is what David referred to as

8 the State appropriation. That is then also

9 added to the tuition that students pay, along

10 with an additional -- I don't know where it

11 comes from -- six million dollars. That

12 becomes a total of 63 million dollars that it

13 costs, the full cost, to provide those 200,000

14 incidences of required remediation during a

15 school year.

16 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Okay.

17 MR. HACKWORTH: Does that help?

18 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: It helps.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other comments?

20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It's not

21 specifically appropriated. It's just what is

22 used for the --

23 MR. PIERSON: That's right. It's cost.

24 Thank you.

25 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.

_

77

1 MR. PIERSON: Item 2 is an appointment to

2 the Education Practices Commission, Lydia

3 Gardner, term ending September 30th, 2002.

4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

7 Without objection, it's approved.

8 MR. PIERSON: Item 3 is an appointment to

9 the Board of Regents, Thomas F. Petway, III,

10 end of term, August 31st, 1999.

11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

12 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a

14 second. I have a serious objection about --

15 no.

16 Mr. Petway, would you like to come and

17 just address the Cabinet?

18 There's a motion; there's a second; are

19 there any objections?

20 It is approved.

21 No, I want to get it approved before he

22 speaks.

23 MR. PETWAY: Governor, I wasn't nervous

24 until you made that personal observation. But

25 it is -- it is a real pleasure to be here

_

78

1 today. I'd like to add my welcome to the

2 Governor and members of the Cabinet.

3 This is a momentous day for Jacksonville

4 and for me. I'm honored to serve on the Board

5 of Regents. I'm ready, willing and able. I'm

6 looking forward to serving with Commissioner

7 Gallagher, a good friend of mine.

8 As a matter of fact, we're off Thursday

9 to my first meeting. So I appreciate the

10 appointment, and I'll do my best. It's a big

11 job, as you're hearing this morning, but I

12 think we have some good opportunities and some

13 great -- some great work to be done.

14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, I'm delighted that

15 you've accepted this additional civic

16 responsibility. And I think it's pretty neat

17 that we're doing it in Jacksonville that -- I

18 don't think there's any opposition to this.

19 This -- Tom has served already at the

20 Board of Regents and done an incredibly fine

21 job. And he will -- he will serve the State

22 very, very well as a member of the Board. And

23 I'm glad you accepted the responsibility.

24 MR. PETWAY: Thank you, sir.

25 Governor, I would like to invite you

_

79

1 back -- you and members of the Cabinet back to

2 a Jaguar's football game. That hadn't been

3 done this morning. I'd like to do that before

4 I leave. So I look forward to y'all coming

5 back. And maybe the next meeting we can have

6 around a football game.

7 GOVERNOR BUSH: That will -- that will

8 violate my gift rules. I'm not sure of

9 everybody else. They may be able to take you

10 up on it, but I'll pay. I'll be here.

11 MR. PETWAY: Thank you, sir.

12 (Applause)

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and

14 second.

15 Any discussion?

16 It is approved.

17 Congratulations, Tom.

18 (The State Board of Education agenda was

19 concluded.)

20 *

21

22

23

24

25

_

80

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right. The Trustees

2 of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund.

3 David, does anybody on the Cabinet want

4 to try to describe what this is?

5 Tom, would you like to do it?

6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'll be glad to

7 do it.

8 In the constitution there -- there is a

9 part that basically says that any property

10 that would be purchased or sold by the state

11 of Florida, it would be held in the name of

12 this Board of Trustees of the Internal

13 Improvement Trust Fund. And in order to

14 approve a transaction of a purchase -- and I

15 believe or a sale -- it does require five of

16 the seven members of the Cabinet to agree.

17 And so we basically sit now as the owners

18 of any real property that exists in the state.

19 And we are sitting with decisions made in

20 regards to that property -- purchases, sales

21 and the use of those properties -- by

22 different agencies or by the people.

23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Governor?

24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.

25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Just let me add

_

81

1 something. I think this is one of the,

2 really -- functions that really highlights the

3 importance of decision making in the sunshine,

4 recognizing that this -- the trustees are made

5 up of the Cabinet and the Governor, but the

6 Cabinet process and processes like this are

7 really what make Florida unique.

8 And this very important issue of the

9 purchase of land, or for matter, the use of

10 public lands being done in the sunshine,

11 really is, I think, one of the remarkable and

12 most important features of what we do.

13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the

14 minutes.

15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: A motion has been moved

17 and seconded.

18 Without objection, it's approved.

19 Item 2.

20 MR. STRUHS: Substitute Item 2 is an

21 interesting item in that it may very well

22 serve as a departure point for the Cabinet's

23 deliberations over the next several months as

24 to how you choose to deal with and regulate

25 gambling operations that are working out of

_

82

1 sovereignty submerged lands.

2 This particular issue is one in which we

3 will be recommending or are recommending

4 approval, of an application for a modification

5 to a 25-year sovereignty submerged land lease.

6 And we're recommending that you approve it,

7 subject to several special lease conditions

8 and to the payment of an additional fee of

9 some $20,000.

10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any comments?

11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor,

12 I have one comment. David, as far as the new

13 portion is concerned -- I know we can't deal

14 with the old portion now, but insofar as the

15 new portion is concerned, if we are to pass

16 something pertaining to gambling ships at our

17 next meeting or thereafter, what effect will

18 that have on --

19 MR. STRUHS: Yes, General. Those special

20 lease conditions include a number of things,

21 including if, in the event that there are any

22 future violations of environmental

23 regulations, the trustees reserve the right to

24 terminate the lease.

25 As it relates to any future conditions

_

83

1 you want to impose as they relate to gambling,

2 and specifically gambling on nondestination

3 cruise ships, the applicant has agreed that

4 they will live by those additional conditions

5 in the area that's known as 2-A on this

6 project.

7 GOVERNOR BUSH: David, do you want --

8 MR. STRUHS: I might also -- I'm sorry,

9 sir, but I might also point out that Mr. Ken

10 Tucker is here representing the applicant.

11 And he would be pleased to speak to the

12 Cabinet.

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Does he want to?

14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If he cares to.

15 GOVERNOR BUSH: You don't have to.

16 Sometimes it's better -- exactly. You don't

17 have to.

18 On the broader issue, if I might, I would

19 like to -- we've talked about this. In fact,

20 we talked about it on your first day when you

21 arrived and we were wandering around the

22 building and went into the area that -- where

23 the EP does regulate these leases.

24 I would like to ask on -- if the Cabinet

25 would agree to -- for the department to come

_

84

1 back with a study, if you will, or report back

2 to us about, just generally, the use of these

3 cruise-to-nowhere vessels on state lands

4 leased, you know, from submerged lands, docked

5 there, how many there are, what the state

6 leases look like, the environmental impacts of

7 these ships.

8 As you know, I'm not a big fan of this

9 type of activity and was not a big fan of how

10 the law was passed to allow them in existence,

11 and not a big fan of the fact that they're not

12 regulated. I'm not a big fan.

13 And this is on state lands,

14 coincidentally, in many cases. And I think

15 it's appropriate for us to get additional

16 information so that we can develop a strategy,

17 if necessary, and perhaps even to go back to

18 the legislature, at least from my perspective

19 that might be appropriate, and I -- but if we

20 could get more information, it would be very

21 valuable to me.

22 Does anybody have any comments about

23 that?

24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think it's a

25 good exercise, a very good exercise, to have

_

85

1 the knowledge that we don't have now: How

2 many ships; where they're shipped from; how

3 often do they go, all of those -- those

4 details, because I don't think anybody really

5 knows at this point.

6 MR. STRUHS: We would be pleased to

7 provide that analysis as you requested and

8 include an historical context in terms of how

9 previous Cabinets have dealt with this issue

10 as well.

11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

13 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion. Is

14 there a second?

15 Moved and seconded.

16 Without objection, it's approved.

17 MR. STRUHS: Thank you. Substitute Item

18 Number 3, we will be recommending a deferral

19 of this item, please.

20 Item Number 4 --

21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Deferral.

22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

23 GOVERNOR BUSH: To be deferred.

24 Without objection, it's approved.

25 MR. STRUHS: Thank you. Item 4, we're

_

86

1 recommending an acceptance of the interim

2 report and suggest you direct the staff to

3 submit its next status report in 90 days

4 relating to the city of Key West, Houseboat

5 Row Interim.

6 GOVERNOR BUSH: David, can you describe

7 this to the audience again? These are

8 interesting. These are different. This kind

9 of describes some of the depth and breadth of

10 the -- being the state's landlord, what --

11 what we do.

12 This one's quite an unusual one. And I

13 think it be worth describing just briefly

14 what --

15 MR. STRUHS: Yes.

16 GOVERNOR BUSH: What this is about.

17 MR. STRUHS: The City of Key West is --

18 is doing an admirable job of removing

19 houseboats from an area in the Keys known as

20 Houseboat Row and relocating them, and doing

21 that within the context of the rules of the

22 state sovereign submerged land lease program.

23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think it might

24 be interesting to add a little bit to that.

25 These boats have been there for many, many

_

87

1 years. They're basically squatters. They

2 don't pay any money. And they sort of claim

3 squatters' rights on that -- on that submerged

4 land.

5 And if one would sink or something else,

6 they'd wait long enough until it sort of got

7 washed away, and somebody else would just move

8 on in. And, finally, with lots of -- the

9 State's been a little concerned about it over

10 the years. And at this point, with about four

11 or five of them getting blown away in

12 Hurricane Georges -- I think that was the

13 hurricane.

14 MR. STRUHS: Right.

15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: The City finally

16 said, okay, we've had enough of this. And

17 they do have a city marina. And they have set

18 aside spaces for those houseboats that are

19 left. And I'm not sure you could really call

20 them houseboats, but those things that are

21 floating somewhat -- some of them aren't

22 floating real well -- and moving them to that

23 marina. And no longer will anybody be able to

24 tie up there and -- we never leased it to them

25 anyway. They were there as squatters.

_

88

1 And so I think that is a little bit more

2 to it.

3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?

4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Move.

5 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.

6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

7 Without objection, it's approved.

8 I also might add that Key West has

9 offered to be the second host of Cabinet For A

10 Day. I'm not sure we'll make it down there

11 for the second one, but they did volunteer.

12 MR. STRUHS: And we'll make sure it's

13 done on a houseboat.

14 Item Number 5, we're recommending

15 approval of two option agreements to require

16 some land in the Florida Keys Ecosystem CARL

17 project.

18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

21 Without objection, it's approved.

22 MR. STRUHS: Item 6, we're recommending

23 approval of three purchase agreements to

24 acquire 60 acres within the Golden Gate

25 Estates area of CARL project.

_

89

1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

2 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.

3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

4 Without objection, it's approved.

5 MR. STRUHS: Item 7, we're recommending

6 approval of an option agreement to acquire 11

7 acres within the Sandy Point Buffer project.

8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.

10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

11 Without objection, it's approved.

12 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 8, we're

13 recommending that you delegate authority to

14 and authorize the Director of our Division of

15 State Lands or his designee to extend

16 bona fide offers and approve any contract for

17 the sale and purchase of land within the North

18 Key Largo Hammocks CARL project at the

19 approved value.

20 Second, we would seek your approval to

21 waive the confidentiality requirement

22 contained in Section 259.041(7)E. And,

23 thirdly, we would seek your permission to

24 waive the survey requirements.

25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

_

90

1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

3 Without objection, it's approved.

4 MR. STRUHS: The second substitute Item

5 Number 9, we're recommending the acceptance of

6 the 1999 CARL Interim Report and approval of

7 the 1999 CARL Interim Priority List.

8 This adds the Tequesta Site to the list,

9 and also adds the Fisheating Creek project,

10 contingent upon the signing of a settlement

11 agreement and providing for the automatic

12 removal of the project from the CARL Priority

13 List if the settlement agreement is not

14 reached.

15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.

16 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.

17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Discussion?

18 MR. STRUHS: Thank you.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.

20 Without objection, it's approved.

21 MR. STRUHS: Item 10, we're requesting

22 approval to modify a perpetual non-exclusive

23 right-of-way easement to Elizabeth Way.

24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Speakers on Item 9?

25 MR. STRUHS: On Item 10?

_

91

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: On Item 9.

2 MR. STRUHS: I'm sorry. I suppose there

3 are.

4 We're pleased to introduce Commissioner

5 Katy Sorenson from Miami/Dade County. And I

6 believe Tom Goldstein may also be here, the

7 assistant county attorney.

8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome, Commissioner.

9 COMMISSIONER SORENSON: Thank you,

10 Governor Bush, members of the Cabinet. Good

11 morning.

12 Thank you for the opportunity to speak to

13 you again about the ongoing saga of the

14 Tequesta Circle. Regrettably, our --

15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner, can you

16 just -- I apologize. This is -- since we're

17 kind of -- this is a new --

18 COMMISSIONER SORENSON: Okay.

19 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- road show, and not

20 everybody in Jacksonville may know about the

21 Miami Circle, maybe you could give us a little

22 bit -- a quick update. You don't have to go

23 through all the very beginnings since it

24 started so long ago but --

25 COMMISSIONER SORENSON: Right.

_

92

1 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- can you give us a

2 little bit of an update on --

3 COMMISSIONER SORENSON: Well, we --

4 GOVERNOR BUSH: What we're talking about

5 for people.

6 COMMISSIONER SORENSON: Okay. We found

7 this unusual configuration down at the mouth

8 of the Miami River when -- after a builder,

9 Mr. Baumann, was set to build his building.

10 And we found a significant archaeological

11 site, which has been named either the Tequesta

12 Circle or the Miami Circle.

13 And since then the County has pursued

14 acquiring the property because of its

15 historical and archaeological significance.

16 And so we're in that process right now.

17 Unfortunately, our mayor and county

18 manager are in a County commission meeting

19 today. And I have to tell you that in four

20 and a half years, this is the first county

21 commission meeting I have missed. So I hope

22 they're not trying to get away with anything

23 back there, but I'm very pleased to be here.

24 And I want to thank you for recognizing the

25 importance of acquiring and preserving the

_

93

1 Tequesta Circle for our citizens and visitors.

2 And, specifically, we're very grateful to

3 you for directing the land acquisition and

4 management counsel -- I guess known as "LAMAC"

5 or maybe the French pronunciation, "LAMAC" --

6 to determine the feasibility of adding the

7 circle to the CARL List and for the State to

8 pay its appraised value or up to 50 percent of

9 the purchase price, whichever is less.

10 We're delighted the counsel has since

11 voted to include the circle on the 1999

12 Priorities List, and that it has been ranked

13 as the Number 1 project in the Bargain/Shared

14 category.

15 We support the staff's recommendation to

16 the Board of Trustees to approve the CARL

17 Priorities List today and urge your favorable

18 vote.

19 To update you on the fundraising

20 activities that the county has just recently

21 undertaken, we've sent approximately 350

22 mailings of a comprehensive press kit to

23 corporations nationwide, to seek donations to

24 the Save the Circle campaign. We sent letters

25 of inquiry to all large foundations that may

_

94

1 have an interest in the site. And, third, the

2 County has, as requested, attempted to

3 negotiate with the Native American community

4 regarding joint participation in the site

5 process, but we've been unsuccessful in this.

6 And if we could have a little nudging from

7 you, I think that would help.

8 We have -- we are presently negotiating

9 with an established foundation which by its

10 nature would have a meaningful relationship

11 with the circle; however, due to the

12 incompleteness of the appraisal process and

13 the ongoing legal proceedings, we cannot

14 identify the specific source and amount.