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ALISA ULFERTS and JONI JAMESGov. Jeb Bush also appoints leaders in state health care and technology departments.
TALLAHASSEE - The Inverness man who inspired the 1990s television drama The Commish, but who left his job running New York City's jails under a cloud, will take over Florida's beleaguered Department of Juvenile Justice, the governor announced Wednesday.
Anthony Schembri, 61, was named juvenile justice secretary just days after a riot at a South Florida maximum security prison for girls and after months of scrutiny by state lawmakers after the deaths of two inmates and allegations that guards had sex with locked-up girls.
Gov. Jeb Bush also named his deputy chief of staff, Alan Levine, a former Pasco County resident and hospital executive, as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration. Levine angered senators last year when he suggested finding Republican opponents for Republican senators opposed to the governor's medical malpractice measures.
Former St. Petersburg resident Simone Marstiller will head the state's technology office. All three start work June 1, and each will be paid $115,000 annually.
The appointments come just two weeks after the end of the legislative session, which means lawmakers won't be able to confirm or reject the nominees until next year.
Schembri, a member of the Florida Corrections Commission, takes over for Bill Bankhead, who left the agency to battle cancer.
Schembri has an extensive law enforcement and corrections background, but his resume includes no juvenile justice experience. He drew headlines in 1995, one year after then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appointed him to head the city's corrections department, when Schembri was forced to resign after the city accused him of breaking the law by not living within the city limits and generating $3,800 in unnecessary commuting costs.
Bush said he was familiar with Schembri's background and said he stood out as the best choice.
Levine, already the architect behind Bush's plans to redesign Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor, now will head the agency that will carry out those changes. He replaced former Secretary Rhonda Medows, who left earlier this year.
Levine came under scrutiny a year ago when he fired off e-mail contemplating Republican challengers for Republican state senators who opposed the governor's medical malpractice insurance agenda. Levine apologized and said writing the e-mail was a mistake.
"It has made me a lot more sensitive, and I've worked more closely with the Legislature," Levine said.
Levine, 36, has served as Bush's deputy chief of staff since February 2003. He was a leader in the effort to pass a 1-cent sales tax in Taylor County to build a new hospital there. Levine has served as chief executive officer for South Bay Hospital in Sun City Center and Doctor's Memorial Hospital in Perry, and was a vice president at Columbia Regional Medical Centers at Bayonet Point and Oak Hill.
Marstiller, 39, a native of Liberia and Bush's assistant deputy chief of staff, takes over a job that has been wracked with controversy almost since Bush created a separate State Technology Office in 2000. Bush had hoped to save money by centralizing the state's technology purchases. But his success has been mixed, in part because the agency's first two managers, Roy Cales and Kim Bahrami, resigned abruptly.
Cales left after being charged with forging loan documents several years before working for the state. Cales was later cleared of the charges. Bahrami left the post in February after coming under scrutiny for her attendance at a vendor conference in Europe and a highly critical audit of the agency in 2002.
- Times staff writer Suzannah Gonzales and researcher Deirdre Morrow contributed to this report.