The PNJ has posted online reporter Jim Little’s coverage of the civil trial regarding the legality of the Escambia County commissioners’ 401a retirement plan.
- While the article calls the plan “lucrative,” it glosses over the fact the taxpayers paid the same amount into the 401a plan as it would have into the Florida Retirement System.
The reporter hints that County Clerk Pam Childers’s legal team may try to argue that the former county administrator was fired because of issues with the 401a plan. Gilley was fired due to poor job performance.
In her tenure, Gilley didn’t do her main job function – produce a county budget for the commissioners to review and approve. Childers’s staff created her budgets.
- The budget process stated that the county administrator was to complete the budget by July 1. After Gilley’s termination on June 17, 2021, the interim administrator, Wes Moreno, has had to scramble to pull figures together.
- Not having a budget ready didn’t stop Budget Director Amber McClure from taking a vacation the week following Gillery’s departure.
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- Moreno had the budget completed by the July 1 deadline, and McClure submitted her resignation not long after she returned from vacation.
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Personhood Bill Stalled
Gray Rohrer of Florida Politics reports that Sen. Erin Grall has temporarily postponed SB 476.
Grall said, “It is my understanding this is the first time this issue has been considered by the Florida Legislature. Although I have worked diligently to respond to questions and concerns, I understand there is still work that needs to be done. It is important we get the policy right with an issue of this significance.”
Critics believed an amendment to the bill would grant “personhood” status to fetuses in civil liability cases, putting state law on a path for courts to interpret unborn children as full persons, thus banning abortions. There was also concern about its impact on in vitro fertilization treatments, like we’ve seen in Alabama after a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling.
Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book told reporters, “Any time you start talking about personhood, IVF is on the table.”
Today, Bryant Liggett and Erin Attaway, co-founders of The Fertility Resort, will be my guests on WCOA’s “Real News with Rick Outzen” at 8 a.m. We will talk about women’s health, the IVF process, and women’s reproductive rights.
