Conexion Miami / Third Floridian may run in 2016

There’s a third Florida republican eyeing a presidential run in 2016. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, built a $3 million home and moved to the Florida panhandle in 2010. He is making waves and has admitted that he will decide in the spring. Last week he gave up his lucrative gig with Fox News, which many say is just another sign of his intentions. Huckabee ran in 2008 and did very well early with the help of persons like Marco Rubio until he faded out in the end. So here’s the latest Florida tally: two former governors and a current senator, all three from Florida, may run…

Gay marriage a growth business

According to wedding planner Shanie McCowen, gay marriage is a growth business. Her Boca Raton company, Rainbow Bells, handled 52 same-sex ceremonies in New York last summer. With Florida opening to gay marriage this week, McCowen aims to expand. One widely cited study estimated the buying power of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans at $830 billion in 2013. And Nicki Grossman, head of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, has been talking up South Florida as a same-sex wedding destination.

Income to rise, costs to fall in 2015

The University of Central Florida predicts total personal income rising 3 percent to 4 percent in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties in 2015. Many people will see higher wages, dividends, interest and other income, UCF economist Sean Snaith said. An improving economy could lead to higher pay in a year when gasoline, electricity and property insurance all will cost less, economists say.

A who’s-who of favor seekers

The Rick Scott inauguration ceremony is not expected to be too big, not this time around. But what we find most interesting is who donated the almost $800,000 to put on the party. They are, as one columnist wrote, “a who’s-who of groups known to seek favorable treatment from the governor’s office, state agencies, the Legislature or all three.”  Click here if you’d like to see some of the name and what they contributed.

Judge slams Florida’s Medicaid children’s program

Judge Adalberto Jordan, in a 153-page decision, said Florida’s history of low reimbursement payments to doctors led to a lack of access to care for many children in Medicaid. He also pointed to problems with issues such as children being improperly terminated from the program, inadequate efforts to sign up children for coverage and a lack of available dental care. Jordan, who is now a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but heard much of the case while serving as a district judge in Miami, found that Florida did not comply with parts of federal Medicaid law.

It’s flu season

Flu cases nationwide are reaching levels not seen in two years, a trend driven in part by a mismatch between the vaccine and this season’s dominant virus type. Twenty-two states, including Florida, reported “high” levels of flu activity in the week before Christmas, a nearly 70 percent jump over the previous week, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tech hub

Officials in the central Florida area around and including Orlando are starting to refer to themselves as a “technology hub”. The Orlando Sentinel reported that “the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area posted the third-highest job demand in Florida last month for online-based work. The area also ranked second in high-wage, high-skill career demand in occupations based in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”

A bionic arm

A group from the University of Central Florida created an arm from a 3-D printer for a little boy born without a real one. Now, Albert Manero and his UCF team have connected with other engineers and designers to grow their work. The UCF students are sharing what they’ve learned with groups at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Southern California, for instance, so they can help more families. Click here to read more of their story.

Three new laws take effect

New Year’s is almost a week old in Florida and the start of 2015 saw three new laws go into effect: (1) As we reported last week, the minimum wage in Florida was raised from $7.93 to $8.05 an hour; (2) employers will see an overall 5.2 percent decrease in workers-compensation insurance rates; and (3) children through age 5 are required to be placed in car seats or booster seats while riding in vehicles (it used to be to age 3).

Florida growing

The influx of residents to Florida is expected to accelerate in 2015, with the state’s growth machine reaching full speed again after the Great Recession. Florida’s population is expected to grow by roughly 280,000 people next year, more than double the net increase from just three years ago.

Four years, a myth

A recently released study called “The Four-Year Myth” from Indianapolis nonprofit Complete College America tells us that most students fail to graduate within four years. Only about 19 percent of college students will graduate in four years from public universities and about 36 percent from flagship high-level research institutions, the report said. For those seeking an associate’s degree at a two-year school, only about 5 percent will finish on time, the study found.

2015 will be good year for tax collector

State economists are forecasting another uptick next year in Florida’s real estate tax collections. Documentary tax receipts are expected to hit $2.3 billion in the 2015-16 budget year, an increase of about $200 million over this year’s collections. State economists earlier reported that Florida’s volume of home sales will come close to matching its peak in 2005. But the $177,000 median home sale price remains about $80,000 below its pre-recession high.

Good news: Coral discovery

A surprise discovery along the South Florida coast has revealed dense thickets of a species of coral thought to be disappearing from the region’s reefs. More than 38 acres of staghorn coral has been found in patches on the reefs from northern Miami-Dade to northern Broward counties, in what scientists call a rare piece of good news for a species that has sustained severe declines, largely due to disease.