Aug. 18, 2011
Central Florida

I wrote before about Florida Governor Rick Scott wanting to test welfare recipients for drugs before granting them welfare benefits. An investigation by wftv.com9 has shown that the state of Florida is losing money on the program.

On July 1st, Florida began requiring a clean drug test before granting assistance to needy families. The law required that the applicants had to pay $30 - $35 for the test out of their own pocket, which would be refunded if the test came back clean. So far 40 applicants have taken the test with two failing the test. One of the two tests is being appealed. The state of Florida has refunded $1,140 to the applicants while saving $240 a month for the two applicants.

Derek Brett of the ACLU said, "we have a diminishing amount of returns on our tax dollars. Do we want our governor throwing our precious tax dollars into a program that already been proven not to work?"

When I googled Gov. Rick Scott for a photo, I found another article appearing in the Palm Beach Post that states that Gov. Scott owned a chain of 32 urgent care clinics throughout Florida named Solantic. One of the main things these clinics do is drug testing.   I also learned that Gov. Scott issued an executive order for mandatory drug testing for prospective state hires and random testing for current employees.

Before Gov. Scott ran for governor, he divested his interest in the company to his wife. Well that moves the money from the family now doesn't it???  Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.