Former lawmaker vies for state job

Mark Flanagan applies for banking regulator, a job he helped create while serving in the House.

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 18, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- A former state legislator who helped set the rules for the new Cabinet post of chief financial officer now wants to be Florida's top banking regulator.

Former Rep. Mark Flanagan of Bradenton, a financial consultant, former chairman of the House Banking Committee and an author of the financial officer legislation, is among the applicants for one of two new jobs regulating banks and insurance companies.

Flanagan, who lost a Republican primary for a state Senate seat to Michael Bennett, is vice president of investments at Sterling Enterprises Group in Treasure Island.

Gov. Jeb Bush and the three-member Cabinet, meeting as the Financial Services Commission, will make both selections. By law, Bush and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher must agree on the choices for both jobs, which could pay as much as $149,000 a year.

The deadline to apply for both jobs was 5 p.m. Monday.

Both jobs are the result of the insistence, chiefly by outgoing Comptroller Bob Milligan, that a nonpartisan appointee and not a partisan elected official should regulate banks and insurers when the jobs of treasurer and comptroller were merged into the single office of CFO.

The law requires both directors to have at least five years of "responsible private sector experience" during the past 10 years in the fields of insurance or financial institutions, or at least five years in a regulatory position.

Flanagan, who served eight years in the House, has 17 years of experience as an investment adviser and securities professional. He said he hoped his breadth of experience would be in his favor.

"The director must understand how state government works, how to get things done, and how to interface between the public and private sectors," Flanagan said.

Besides Flanagan, others seeking the job as director of the Office of Financial Institutions and Securities Regulation include Art Simon, now deputy comptroller in Milligan's office and a former state House member from Miami; Don Saxon, director of the securities and finance division under Milligan; Alex Hager, director of the banking division under Milligan; Craig Kiser, a former deputy comptroller who runs the Division of Blind Services in the Department of Education; Jeff Jones, special counsel and inspector general in the state Attorney General's Office; Erin Sjostrom, director of the Division of Retirement; and Robert Cohen, a retired colonel in the Marine Corps and a former second in command at the state Department of Children and Families who was fired last week by DCF Secretary Jerry Regier.

Eight people applied for the other job, director of the Office of Insurance Regulation. They include Kevin McCarty, deputy state insurance commissioner; attorney and former insurance executive Raymond Blacklidge of Wesley Chapel; Milt Baugess, president of Republican Asset Management Corp. in Tallahassee; and Michael Blackshear, manager of KPMG in Washington.

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