Bush wants to privatize some state duties, but it is not known how much of the work would stay in Tallahassee. Questions such as these have many state workers and business leaders on edge. The big question now is whether the Tallahassee economy would be able to absorb the displaced workers. Bush came to town in 1987 as secretary of the old Department of Commerce, bursting with ideas about how state government should be run more like one of the successful banking and real estate enterprises he ran in Miami. There probably are some FTEs that could go away, but there is a tremendous attrition rate .
Many employees are worried about changes within the personnel system itself.
It's not bonuses. Those bonuses come out of unused salary money, so you get your bonus by seeing your coworkers laid off and not replaced. With 26,603 FTEs, the Department of Children and Families has been through this before. Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan formed a working group with her agency and the departments of Corrections, Juvenile Justice, Labor and the Agency for Health Care Administration to deal with 1,662 FTEs being cut in the new Bush budget. City Commissioner John Paul Bailey and County Commissioner Tony Grippa, Republicans who survived an election season overshadowed by Bush's 25-percent plan last year, called on Brogan late last month to discuss Tallahassee's economy.