The house speaker's office is spending nearly $8,000 a month to brief legislators about Florida politics.
By Associated Press
Published June 5, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's office is spending nearly $8,000 a month of taxpayer money for daily briefings of legislators on newspaper and television stories about Florida politics.
Byrd signed contracts with two companies to provide the reports, which cost nearly $94,000 annually and are available to all 120 House legislators and their staff.
But many lawmakers already get their news coverage from free Web sites operated by newspapers and by the Sayfie Review, which provides daily links to political stories from the state's largest newspapers.
Byrd said Tuesday he didn't know the details of the contracts.
"Somebody just put it on my computer," he said laughing. "I don't know. It just shows up."
Byrd touted the reports in a March 21 letter as a "new service to help you stay better abreast of the issues affecting Florida."
Shortly after taking the speaker's position last year, Byrd created a House Communications Office with 13 employees making a total of about $600,000 annually. Their charge: Provide information to Floridians as an alternative to news "filtered" by TV stations and newspapers.
But none of those 13 employees combs the newspapers daily for stories.
Instead, Byrd authorized a 12-month contract in March at a rate of $7,798.70 per month with CustomScoop, a New Hampshire company.
House employees who sign up for the service receive daily e-mail from CustomScoop containing links to stories containing keywords selected by subscribers.
Byrd also signed a three-month contract with Video Monitoring Services in Miami to provide transcripts of television news stories. That contract cost $1,000 a month and expired May 31.
