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State corrections officials say they are still deciding whether to appeal a judge’s decision to stop a bid to privatize 29 Florida prisons. Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford has twice ruled against the private prison plans, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the Governor is none too happy.

Four thousand correctional officers face transfer or the loss of their jobs to private prisons under the legislative plan to turn 29 prisons over to a private corporation. Their union sued and stopped the plan. Corrections officer James Baiardi says the uncertainty is stressful.

“Are they going to have a job, are they not going to have a job? Are they going to be moving, are they not going to have to move? They more or less feel like yo-yos,” Baiardi said.

The state appealed, and the union went back into court to keep the privatization bids from being accepted. Early Saturday, a judge told the state for a second time to halt the bidding.

“When they started the bidding process again, I saw this new wave of panic among my membership and I saw how it affected my own family,” Baiardi said.

In the ten months since Rick Scott has been governor, he’s won lawsuit over high speed rail. But the courts have told him that he can’t drug test welfare recipients, and that he can’t go about privatizing prisons the way it was being done.

A plan to require public employee pension contributions is also in court. As a result, Rick Scott has been regularly expressing his displeasure with the courts.

“You know, the legislature passes something, I sign it, and the judiciary decides whether we are going to get to have it as a law or not,” Scott said. “That’s not the way it ought to be.”

Should Scott lose the pension case, and is forced to return what has been collected, the state would find itself a billion dollars short of balancing the current budget.

The state is still deciding whether to appeal the latest judicial order stopping the state from accepting bids for private prisons. Those bids were due to be opened Thursday.