Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
Last week, Florida’s already wildly unpopular new Republican governor, Rick Scott, issued an executive order requiring state employees to submit to drug tests at least four times a year.
Last night, Rachel Maddow cited Scott’s order to illustrate the wide gap between Republican campaign rhetoric about small government and the sort of big-government policies they pursue when they get elected.
“Floridians deserve to know that those in public service, whose salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, are part of a drug-free workplace,” Scott said, when he announced the order. “Just as it is appropriate to screen those seeking taxpayer assistance, it is also appropriate to screen government employees.”
Scott has only lived in Florida for a few years and so was not in the state in 1998 when an earlier government experiment with drug-testing poor people proved not to be cost-effective. At a cost of $90 per test, the program was zilched after it failed to produce evidence of widespread drug abuse among people on public assistance.
Who will be tested, when and how often?
Here’s the key paragraph from Scott’s Executive Order Number 11-58 [PDF]:
I hereby direct all agencies within the purview ofthe Governor to amend their drug-testing policies to provide for pre-employment drug testing for all prospective new hires and for random drug testing of all employees within each agency. The amended policy should provide for the potential for any employee, including all full-time and part-time employees, and employees of any employment classification — including but not limited to, Senior Management Service, Select Exempt Service Career Service; and other Personal Services — to be tested at least quarterly.
So “all full-time and part-time employees, and employees of any employment classification” are to be tested “at least quarterly.”
How many state employees are there in Florida?
According to the State Personnel System Annual Workforce Report 2009-2010 [PDF],”There were 167,797 total established positions in all state employment systems at the end of fiscal year 2009/2010.”
And how much will each drug test cost?
It appears that the cost of drug-testing has gone down from $90 each in 1998. The governor’s office did not release an official figure, but here perhaps is a clue:
One of the more popular services at Solantic, the urgent care chain co-founded by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, is drug testing, according to Solantic CEO Karen Bowling.
Given Solantic’s role in that marketplace, critics are again asking whether Scott’s policy initiatives – this time, requiring drug testing of state employees and welfare recipients – are designed to benefit Scott’s bottom line.
The Palm Beach Post reported in an exclusive story two weeks ago that while Scott divested his interest in Solantic in January, the controlling shares went to a trust in his wife’s name…
Solantic charges $35 for drug tests.
It is unclear who will provision the testing — and there’s no indication it would be Solantic — but that decision will have to be fast-tracked. The governor’s decree orders testing to begin on job applicants in less than two months.
So What’s the Bottom Line?
Using Solantic’s price as a base, at $35 per test for 168,000 employees, the cost for one round would be $5.8 million. If all employees are tested once a quarter, that’s a cost to Florida taxpayers of $23.5 million per year. (If the tests still cost $90 each, the price tag for taxpayers would rise to $60.4 million a year.)
Scott’s spokespeople deny there’s a conflict of interest here, but given Scott’s history of corruption — Columbia/HCA, the company he headed for 10 years, was fined $1.7 billion for defrauding Medicare in 1997 — it’s hard to imagine why anyone would give him the benefit of a doubt.
Too bad we don’t have lawmakers who have the guts to stand and say Hey, employees do not lose their fundamental human rights at the workplace door and write a law that would say something like no random drug testing without reasonable suspicion but instead we get totalitarian garbage like the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 (and Gov. Rick Scott).
I’ll test when Rush Limbaugh tests.
Republicans always campaign on small government, cutting spending and cutting taxes. What they don’t tell you is:
1. they really mean less government for them and more government for everybody else.
2. they really mean less taxes for them and more taxes for you.
3. they really mean to transfer the money saved from spending cuts to richest folks which doesn’t serve to reduce budget deficits they love to talk about!
The radical Repbulicans are dictators at heart full of self-serving hot air!!!
it becomes a little clearer, Scott’s 70 million campaign investment its starting to see some profits???
He puts Solantic in his wifes name? until death do us part, was yours is mine, whats mine is yours (called marriage).
the Floridian brain is sun-dried, or are the pain/pill-mills really THAT bad???
I guess, nobody can even remotely imagine, what our State will look like in 2014!!!
thanks a lot all you idiotic Republican voters!!!!
I just wonder when you people will wake up. When will you actually find out that they are lying to you about ‘smaller government;’.. unless you believe that smaller means small enough to fit into your womb or your bladder. This state is totally repub. And the repubs will do everything in their power to keep it that way. They will redistrict to their advantage, in spite of our vote. They will destroy our public schools, in spite of our vote. They will deny voting rights when ever they can. They will bust the unions. I so hate living here. But, my house is paid for, my children have their degrees and have moved away (of course!!), and we are retired military, so we have health care in spite of the a-holes who deny it to every one else. I don’t really have a dog in this hunt, except that my husband’s second career is Corrections Officer. OOOps.
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