Brightline bonds downgraded to junk status.
The passenger railroad Brightline is facing mounting financial woes. It skipped a second interest payment on its municipal bonds. According to the financial company Bloomberg, Brightline has $1.2 billion of subordinate municipal bonds. The interest payment was due on January 15th on the debt. The company had already skipped the first interest payment last July.
Ridership and revenue is falling far short of projections. Last month S&P downgraded Brightline’s senior municipal bonds to junk status. And the CEO of the train company was replaced last week by the former head of Eurostar, the European train company.
Florida is #1 - in ACA enrollees.
Preliminary figures show Florida still has the most people enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans of any state. WFIT’s Terri Wright gives us the numbers.
After lawmakers did not extend ACA enhanced subsidies, Florida lost 5.5% of its total enrollment. The state still has the most enrollees in the nation, followed by Texas and California.
The numbers show 261,115 fewer people enrolled in Florida on healthcare.gov compared with the same time last year. According to the nonprofit health policy research group, KFF, those who received subsidies and purchased Obamacare were projected to see their monthly payments more than double, increasing by about 114%.
ICE considering building a facility in Central Florida.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering building a new detention center, but this one would be in Central Florida. ICE is eyeing a unused warehouse facility, located about 15 miles west of Brevard County just off SR 528. ICE representatives toured the warehouse last Friday. While there already is an ICE Field Office in Orlando, a new processing facility could further ramp up immigration detention efforts in Central Florida.
Florida prisons need more money.
One Florida lawmaker says the state’s prisons need more money than they are asking for. The Florida Department of Corrections is asking for $374 million to raise base pay for corrections officers and staff. Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith calls it woefully inadequate. He says the department needs between $6 billion and nearly $12 billion to repair buildings and construct new facilities, with hundreds of millions more needed to pay for staffing. Smith believes that if Florida is going to be tough on crime, that means more money for the aging prison system.
In related news, a recent report says Florida tops the national list for harsh prison penalties. The authors of the study evaluated the maximum penalties for crimes like theft, burglary, DUI and murder in each state. For example, the study says theft offenses in Florida can carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. In California, it’s a maximum of 6 years in prison.
Buzz Aldrin is 96.
Today is Buzz Aldrin’s birthday. The second man to walk on the moon turns 96 years old. He currently lives in California, but spent years in Satellite Beach while serving as a senior faculty advisor at Florida Tech.
