State Briefs: Hurricane Season Starts; Job Growth Slows; DCF Official Forced Out

June 1, 2012

Here’s a look at what’s making news around Florida today:

Hurricane Season Starts Today

Gov. Rick Scott will mark the start of hurricane season in Miami, stopping at a Home Depot to remind residents to pack a hurricane kit, and taking part in a news conference at the National Hurricane Center starting off the annual summer storm season. While the Atlantic season starts June 1, Florida has already watched two named storms this year, including Tropical Storm Beryl, which while not much more than a summer squall, blew ashore in the Jacksonville area last weekend, mostly bringing rain to North Florida.

Job Growth Slowed A Bit In May

Economic growth slowed in May with just under 70,000 new jobs created, fewer than expected, and the national unemployment rate remained “essentially unchanged” at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Employment increased in health care, transportation and warehousing, and wholesale trade but declined in construction. Employment was little changed in most other major industries. Republicans quickly blamed the White House for not doing enough to create jobs last month. Florida’s jobless rate is down to 8.7 percent, getting closer to the national rate.

DCF Official Forced Out After Harassment Claim

A top Department of Children of Families official was forced out because of alleged sexual harassment of an employee who was paid $150,000 by the agency to settle the issue without a lawsuit and stay quiet about it, the Palm Beach Post reported. DCF confirmed that Secretary David Wilkins decided Jamie Self, director of the agency’s Family and Community Services Office had to leave the agency after being accused of sexual harassment by employee Christie Ferris. The newspaper reported that Self hired Ferris and then had an affair with her. She claimed in a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after she was fired Jan. 19 that Self harassed her, sent her explicit text messages and that she believed if she didn’t have an affair with him she would lose her job. The Post, which obtained a copy of the settlement, quoted DCF General Counsel Drew Parker as saying that the agency settled with Ferris to avoid potentially larger costs of a lawsuit. “Sometimes employees do stuff that’s not right and that costs the agency money,” Parker told the paper. Wilkins knew Self from their work together at the Florida Baptist Children’s Home. After he worked there, Self was director of Christian education for the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Bartow. He was paid $103,000 a year and oversaw high profile parts of the agency’s operations, including the child abuse hotline and child safety oversight. Self said in a note to colleagues when he resigned that he was moving his family back to central Florida.

By The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Archive