Kottkamp not only high flier on planes
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – One way to help lawmakers out of a $4 billion budget hole is to downsize the state’s air fleet, a key state senator said Monday.
Following a weekend newspaper story that Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp failed to pay thousands of dollars for flying family members more than two dozen times on state planes, Sen. JD Alexander said it’s time to slash the number of state planes from two to one.
“We probably should have one state plane to make sure the governor can be in the state wherever he needs to be in crisis time,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said Monday. “Other than that I would think we could get along with just one.”
State records showed that on several occasions an empty plane was dispatched for the 400-mile flight to Fort Myers in southwest Florida where Kottkamp lives – putting yet another bull’s-eye on how taxpayer dollars are spent.
“If somebody’s using it just to fly home for the weekend, it leads to legitimate questions, especially when the budget is in as bad a shape as it is,” said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida, a government watchdog group.
Alexander, who chairs the Senate’s powerful Ways and Means Committee that writes the budget, also said the flights should not be for commuting purposes.
“I don’t think the Legislature has suggested that commuting is OK, ever,'” he said, adding that was a detail that could quickly be remedied.
Kottkamp averaged a flight nearly every other day on a state plane during his first two years as lieutenant governor. His usage was first reported Sunday by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“Everybody should be very careful in using these very expensive state resources,” Alexander said. “They should be very carefully weighed against our overwhelming budget needs.”
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink also flew on state aircraft with family members in the last two years while Regina Bronson, wife of Florida’s agriculture commissioner, has yet to reimburse her husband’s department for three flights.
Bronson’s spokeswoman, Liz Compton, said the agency paid the Department of Management Services for the flights that Bronson’s wife owes the ag department.
“It was definitely an oversight, but certainly one that we want to correct right away,” Compton said Monday.
Attorney General Bill McCollum was the only Cabinet member who did not have his wife or kids join him on state flights.
Florida sold a third plane last November in a cost-cutting move and lawmakers could decide shortly to sell a second.
An audit four months ago by the Legislature’s budget watchdog agency said the state could save between $700,000 and $1.8 million a year by selling the Cessna Citation jet preferred by Gov. Charlie Crist.
Instead the state auctioned off its oldest aircraft, a 1985 turboprop Beechcraft King Air 300 for $1.35 million to help cut expenses.