Reply #10: DONT FORGET [View All]

The Bush Who Stole Florida Teachers' Christmas
by LondonYank
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Sat Dec 01, 2007 at 04:21:36 AM PDT

Jeb Bush was one of 3 people managing the investments of the Florida State Board of Administration. The SBA runs an investment pool of municipalities' cash and also the state's $170 billion pension fund. The SBA administrator appointed by Jeb is Coleman Stipanovich, brother of J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich who managed Jeb's campaign for governor and advises Katherine Harris.

The SBA investment pool is now frozen after $10 billion was withdrawn, and what's left is financial toxic waste. Hundreds of Florida cities, counties, school districts and fire departments are at risk of defaulting on salaries over a payroll weekend.

No salaries means no Christmas for Florida's civil servants. Thanks Jeb!

Below I go into the reasons to think that Jeb might have used the SBA to loot the municipalities and pensions of Florida on behalf of cronies for over $1.2 billion.

* LondonYank's diary :: ::
*

This month saw a run on the SBA investment pool, with over $10 billion withdrawn by nervous county treasurers from Orange, Miami-Dade and Broward counties after Bloomberg revealed $700 million in defaulted assets might compromise the fund. They were smart. The assets left are toxic waste with no market.

On Thursday the current SBA board Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum froze withdrawals from the SBA investment pool.

Their decision was over the objection of Stipanovich, who wanted to loot the $140 billion SBA pension fund to cover further withdrawals from the SBA investment fund.

But Sink, the board's lone Democrat, questioned the legality of pledging money that is intended for retired state employees, school teachers and county employees. Sink instead called for outside financial managers to evaluate the idea and report back to the board by next Tuesday.

When asked whether or not she was had lost faith in the board staff, Sink responded that cities and counties have had a ''crisis of confidence'' by withdrawing billions from the state run fund.

The SBA pool acts like a money market fund, as a place to park spare cash until it is spent by municipalities. Because the cash in the pool is cash which municipalities need to spend for routine things like salaries and expenses, the expectation is that the pool should only invest in liquid and safe assets like Treasury bills and certificates of deposit so that funds will always be available as needed.