Florida Senate Blocks Private Prison Bill

Bloomberg
Florida’s Senate blocked a plan to create the largest private-prison system in the U.S., handing a setback to a Geo Group Inc. (GEO) unit that will instead seek to expand outside the Sunshine State, according to its president.
“There are still a lot of opportunities,” Jorge Dominicis, president of the Boca Raton, Florida-based company’s Geo Care unit, said after the vote yesterday in Tallahassee, the capital. “There are other states looking at doing similar things and you’re seeing things happening abroad.”
Dominicis declined to comment on whether Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, should use executive authority to privatize the prisons following the vote. Scott skirted the same question, saying he wanted lawmakers to pass the proposal.
Scott, 59, couldn’t muster enough support in the Senate, which rejected the measure, 21-19. The plan was projected to save $16.5 million a year, helping to curb a sixth consecutive annual deficit. As states cope with the aftermath of the longest recession since the Great Depression, asset sales and shifting traditional roles to companies has increased.