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Florida leads the nation in online learning offering more degrees over the internet than any other state in the union. As Whitney Ray tells us, education experts met in Tallahassee today to discuss the future of online education.

College Junior DeJa-Nique Frierson hates history.

“I loss interest really, really quickly because I don’t like history,” said DeJa-Nique.

To better suit her learning style she took the course online.

“I’m able to work at my own pace,” said DeJa-Nique.

Four out of 10 college students in Florida have taken at least one class over the internet. Statewide there are more than six-hundred degrees offered completely online.

“Florida is actually a national leader in online learning,” said Randy Goin with the University System’s Board of Governors.

Friday the Florida Higher Education Coordinating Council discussed options for expanding online learning. A previous plan to create a standalone state university for all online classes was scrapped.

“Folks are actually now less interested in the idea of a standalone, brand new, from scratch online university,” said Goin.

The council could recommend appointing one school to take the led in online learning. Education Commissioner Tony Bennett says any type of expansion would save tax dollars.

“This is really an educational economics question in many ways and I think there is probably no better way to do it,” said Bennett.

But not all classes work well online.

Reporter: You took PE online?
DeJa-Nique: Yes
Reporter: How do you do that?
DeJa-Nique: It’s easy.”
Reporter: Did you have to do any exercises?
DeJa-Nique: I didn’t “have to do it.”

Before the state moves forward with the expansion, the legislature and Board of Governors will further study their options. The University System’s Board of Governors will meet in Gainesville next Wednesday to continue the conversation. The issue will also be brought before state lawmakers.

State lawmakers will soon have to decide whether or not Florida will participate in the Medicaid expansion made optional under Obamacare.

Today the Florida Hospital Association released a poll claiming six out of 10 voters want the expansion. Six hundred Florida voters were surveyed for the poll. FHA President Bruce Rueben says if lawmakers pass on the Medicaid dollars they’ll just go to another state.

“The fact that we will pay for this regardless of whether we accept the coverage means we will have an even bigger amount of uncompensated care,” said Rueben.

The Federal Government is promising to pick up 90 percent of the expansion cost through the first 10 years. Governor Rick Scott and state lawmakers worry who will pay for the program once the federal promise expires.

For the first time since the death penalty was reinstated Florida lawmakers voted on a bill to repeal capital punishment. As Whitney Ray tells us, the plan was to abolish the death penalty, but the effort could be used to try to speed up executions.

Religious leaders, human rights advocates and Democrats took turns railing against the death penalty Thursday.

“The death penalty is a barbaric act and we need to abolish it,” said Juvais Harrington with the NAACP.

Many have fought the battle for decades but what’s different now is legislation to end capital punishment was promised a hearing.

“There is no proof that the death penalty deters crime,” said Bill Sponsor Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel-Vasilinda.

The next obstacle for supporters is getting the bill past Representative Matt Gaetz.

Reporter: Do you ever see a day when we don’t need the death penalty?
Gaetz: No. I think the death penalty is important for public safety.

Gaetz allowed the bill to be heard in his committee despite his opposition. Supporters of the legislation say he may have other motives.

Reporter: By hearing the bill to eliminate the death penalty, the death penalty will be sped up?

Gaetz: My view is before we get to the business of reforming the death penalty, it’s a threshold question as to whether or not Florida should have a death penalty at all.

Florida executes two inmates a year and 400 people are currently on death row.

“If we are not going to get rid of it, let’s at least fix it so we don’t have this blight on our justice system where we have people hanging around 25 or 30 years without any end in sight,” said Gaetz.

Regardless of the outcome, opponents of the death penalty say the fact the bill is being heard is evidence they’re gaining ground. The bill was heavily defeated this afternoon, but Gaetz says he’s open to hearing more ideas on how to reform the current system.

A Floridian has been picked to head a nationwide education policy council.

Dr. Ed Moore is the current president of Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida. He’s a member of the Florida Higher Education Coordinating Council. This week he was selected to Chair the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities State Executives. Moore says chairing the board will allow him to share Florida’s policies with other states and bring fresh ideas to Tallahassee.

“What happens here and what we do here in Florida is respected around the country and sometimes they want to copy us and sometime they do some things we want to copy here,” said Moore.

The board meets in Washington, which means Moore will be splitting time between DC and Tallahassee.

The NAACP and Florida Democrats are joining forces to reform the way Florida deals with minors who committee crimes.

The groups held a joint news conference today at the state capitol. They say too many teens are being locked up and in some cases the kids are being jailed in adult prisons. A teen who goes by JP spoke out at the conference. He was jailed in Polk County and says he was beaten by inmates and pepper sprayed by guards.

“They had came and blindsided me and I got hit in the face. Seven of them came from behind me. I got slammed. Beat up real bad. After that I got pepper sprayed,” said JP.

Democrats are calling for lighter penalties for teens who committee misdemeanors.

State lawmakers may once again look to the Bright Futures Scholarship Program to save money. As Whitney Ray tells us, an influential tax group is asking lawmakers to make the scholarship harder to get to save the state 55 million dollars.

FSU Junior Wesley Mellone is on track to graduate debt free.

“With my parents funding my rent only and I’ll pay for my food, I’m able to graduate without any loans,” said Wesley.

He credits the Bright Future’s Scholarship program for his financial fortune.

“Bright Futures and a combination of other scholarships pay my tuition completely,” said Wesley.

Every year Wesley has been at FSU Bright Futures has been scaled back. The program peeked in 2008 when the state awarded 429 million dollars worth of scholarships. Today the cost to the state has fallen to 316 million.

And state lawmakers may look to Bright Futures once again to balance the budget. Florida TaxWatch is recommending another 55 million dollar cut to the program.

TaxWatch released its annual cost savings recommendations. High on the list is limiting Bright Future to the top 10 percent of graduates from each school.

“It will help us achieve diversity within the state university system. It’ll help achieve predictability with the cost going forward because based on how many students we have in twelfth grade we know a certain percentage will be eligible for Bright Futures,” said Rob Weissert with Florida TaxWatch.

The recommendation is drawing the ire of House Democrats, long time opponents of any cuts to the popular scholarship program.

“If we continue to cut back the funds they don’t have the moneys to pay for the courses to go to school,”

Despite the recent run on the program, this year there’s a budget surplus which means the scholarship money may remain untouched. TaxWatch is recommending several options to scale back Bright Futures. Limiting the scholarship to the top 10 percent of students in a school could save the state 55 million. Limiting the reward to the top 25 percent would save the state seven million.

Attorney General Pam Bondi honored Florida law enforcement officers today at the state capitol.

Two were selected to be co-Law Enforcement Officers of the year. St Petersburg Police Department Sergeant Karl Lounge and Officer Douglas Weaver were involved in a deadly shoot-out that cost two officers their lives.

“They made the ultimate sacrifice. It was a team effort and unfortunately they can’t be here to see the appreciation. I hope they are somewhere appreciating it,” said Weaver.

Seven other officers were also nominated for the yearly award.

Online shoppers brace yourselves. The state is one step closer to collecting sales taxes on all online purchases. As Whitney Ray tells us, the internet sales tax bill passed its first committee stop today on a 10 to one vote.

Shopping online in Florida has its perks; no lines, no gas used getting to the store and no state sales tax.

For twelve years state lawmakers have tried to collect taxes on online purchases but ever attempt has been heavily defeated. A new bill is bringing hope to the cause.

“It’s maybe time to look at total tax reform,” said Detert.

State Senator Nancy Detert ushered the new online sales tax bill through its first committee stop Tuesday. Detert says it’s not a new tax because the money is already owed. It’s just up to the buyer to self report.

“The consumer is supposed to tax themselves and some actually do and those are the people who are going to die and go right to heaven for submitting a sales tax that nobody checked on,” said Detert.

To get the support needed to pass online tax reform, the bill will have to be revenue neutral, which means for ever dollar an online tax generates, another tax dollar will have to be nixed.

Governor Rick Scott has a few suggestions about where to cut taxes. Just hours after the bill was voted on, Scott celebrated Manufacturing Days at the state capitol.

“Most other states don’t have a tax on manufacturing equipment. So if we want to compete we’ve got to level the playing field,” said Scott.

Before the bill passed its first committee it was amended to include a sales tax exemption on manufacturing equipment, which is expected to cost more than 140 million dollars.

One problem with making the bill revenue neutral is no one knows how much money the online sales tax would generate. Current estimates are between five million and 500 million dollars.

For the second time in less than a year, Integrity Florida is taking on Enterprise Florida.

This time over what it calls corporate welfare and a pay-to-play culture. The report calls out the state’s economic development agency for giving tax incentives to companies that promised to create 200-thousand jobs… but only created about half that amount.

“We are allowed to have other discussions and debate about how we grow our state’s economy and when you look at incentives as one tool, the idea of rebates to some companies and not their competitors, it’s worth asking, ‘is that the best way to do it? Can we do better? Can we do more broad based lift all boats things?’” said Dan Krassner, President of Integrity Florida.

Americans for Prosperity sponsored the report. The national group is funded by the conservative Koch Brothers. Krassner says Integrity Florida is a nonpartisan group that takes donations based on the mission not politics.

Governor Rick Scott is using his bully pulpit to champion a sales tax break on manufacturing equipment.

To bolster the cause Scott invited manufacturers to the state capitol Tuesday. There are more than 17-thousand manufacturing companies in Florida employing 300-thousand people. Scott says the tax break would help manufactures create thousands of jobs.

“When we eliminate this tax it makes us more competitive with other states so we will have more manufacturing jobs,” said Scott.

The cost of the tax break is 140 million dollars and is in Scott’s 74 billion dollar budget proposal. The largest recommended spending package in Florida history.

The number of repeat offenders in Florida prisons is falling rapidly. The lowest crime rate in Florida in 41 years is probably the main reason for the good news, but as Whitney Ray tells us, a focus on work release programs is also helping to keep ex-cons on the straight and narrow.

Greeting customers with a smile, Eric Smallridge is thankful for every day he breaths free air.

“I thought that I would be incarcerated into my 40s,” said Eric.

Eric is a manager in training at GoodWill but just last year he was serving time for two DUI Manslaughter felonies.

In 2002 Eric struck a car and killed two girls. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but after the victim’s families asked for leniency his time was shortened.

“Being that I was a first time offender I was allowed to take advantage of the work release program and in doing that Goodwill has a policy where they try to help the disadvantaged or disabled members of the community,” said Eric.

Landing a job can be the difference between a life of crime and a future on the right side of the law. That’s why the state is constantly improving its work release program.

At a news conference Monday Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews announced the number of felons who committee new crimes, or the recidivism rate, has fallen from 33 percent to 27.

“We are making some progress with them right now through the programs and education that we have so that when they get out the first thing they have to do is not recommitted crime, but they can go get a job,” said Crews.

For every one percent drop in the recidivism rate the state saves 19 million dollars, and society gains taxpayers. The declining rate of reoffending felons has saved the state 44 million dollars. It could also mean bonuses for some Florida correctional officers.

Governor Rick Scott has just released the largest spending plan in the state’s history. Scott’s 74 billion dollar budget includes 30 billion dollars for heath care services and entitlements, but as Whitney Ray tells us, it leaves out a Medicaid expansion optional under Obamacare.

On the campaign trail Governor Rick Scott ran as a Tallahassee outsider, a darling of the Tea Party. But that was 2010. Now, Scott is proposing the largest budget in Florida history.

“Our Florida’s Family First Budget is 74.2 billion dollars,” said Scott at his budget unveiling Thursday.

It’s full of teacher raises and merit increases for state workers.

“There will always be more worthy causes for government spending than funding available to support them,” said Scott.

But Scott has to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere appears to be Obamacare.

“There is still the question of the optional expansion of the state’s Medicaid program which was left up to us by the Supreme Court. Today is not the day for that decision,” said Scott.

The federal government is offering to pay 90 percent of the expansion and Florida’s cost over the next decade could be as low as a billion dollars, but Scott left it out of his budget, while legislative leaders continue to crunch the numbers.

Democrats say the governor and Republican lawmakers are dragging their feet.

“Thus far we’ve talked about the cost of Medicaid expansion without talking about the benefit side of it, which seems impractical,” said Senate Minority Leaders Chris Smith.

While the partisan bickering continues, 900-thousand Floridians who would be covered under the expansion are watching Tallahassee waiting on the outcome.

Legislative leaders may move forward with a Medicaid expansion without the governor’s consent but then Scott could veto it. But if lawmakers decide against the expansion, Scott wouldn’t have a say-so in the expansion.

Alexandria, VA – Bob Williams, President of State Budget Solutions (SBS), a national nonprofit organization advocating for fundamental reform of state budgets and pensions, released the following statement regarding Florida Governor Rick Scott’s proposed state budget for Fiscal Year 2014 that he unveiled yesterday.

“Gov. Scott’s proposed budget increases state spending by $4 billion, making it the largest budget in Florida’s history. But even with the excessive spending this budget includes, it fails to pay off its $631 million in unemployment insurance loan from the federal government and doesn’t put a dent in the massive unfunded pension liabilities.

Gov. Scott’s spending spree is reckless and dangerous to the Florida economy. A more responsible approach would be to set aside a reserve to have in the event of federal budget cuts. In 2011, Florida received 37% of its total budget from the federal government, an increase from 28% in 2008. Florida will be lucky if, after the federal budget cuts this year, the state still receives 30% of its total budget from the federal government. Saving now will minimize the impact on Floridians later.

Now is not the time for Florida to spend more than it ever has in state history. State Budget Solutions urges Florida’s leaders to address the state’s debt, proactively plan for future cuts and use available funds to address the state’s pension issues.”