March 29, 2024

Tuesday's Daily Pulse

Tuesday's Daily Pulse

What you need to know about Florida today

| 5/5/2020

Florida sales tax collections down by more than $750 million, preliminary reports show

Florida sales tax collections from March are as much as $770 million below estimates for the month, according to preliminary revenue reports obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. That’s about 25 percent less than the state expected to raise in sales tax revenue for the month, according to the reports. April collections are expected to be worse: Walt Disney World didn’t shut down until halfway through March, for instance, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t issue a statewide shelter-in-place order until the beginning of April. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

On Florida’s first day of reopening, the state reports 20 new coronavirus deaths

After more than a month of shutdown, much of the state reopened Monday with Floridians allowed to dine inside restaurants, visit white sand beaches and shop at non-essential retailers. But as the state moves to restart its fractured economy, the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow by the hundreds. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

Legendary Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula dies at 90

Don Shula, the steel-jawed son of Hungarian immigrants who rose from tiny Painesville, Ohio, to carve his name in professional football’s record books and become both a national figure and a South Florida icon, passed away Monday morning. Shula, an NFL head coach for 33 years and coach of the Miami Dolphins for 26 of those seasons, was exactly four months past his 90th birthday. He is the winningest coach in NFL history with a regular-season record of 328-156-6 and a postseason record of 19-17. [Source: Miami Herald]

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State unemployment fund earning millions in interest, as Floridians wait on unemployment checks

More than a month after a record number of out-of-work Floridians flooded the state’s broken unemployment website, Florida has collected more in interest on its largely untapped unemployment fund than any other state. Florida’s unemployment fund earned nearly $25 million in interest in the first three months of this year, according to an accounting record. [Source: WFTS]

Carnival Cruise Lines plans to sail again starting in August

Carnival Cruise Lines said Monday that it plans to gradually resume cruising in North America in August, nearly five months after it halted operations due to the new coronavirus. Sailings will begin on Aug. 1 with eight ships setting off from Galveston, Texas; Miami; and Port Canaveral, Florida. A majority of customers can easily drive to those ports, the company noted. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Gov. Ron DeSantis orders investigation into broken unemployment system
Gov. Ron DeSantis said he will ask his inspector general to investigate the contract with the company that built Florida’s broken unemployment website seven years ago. DeSantis said he wants his inspector general, an office that was created in 1994 to provide internal oversight of state agencies, to investigate how the state paid $77.9 million on the website and how the contract was amended numerous times.

› Miami-born Cesar Conde named chief of new NBCUniversal news division
Miami native Cesar Conde has been named chief of the newly-formed NBCUniversal News Group, part of a corporate reorganization at NBCUniversal announced Monday. Conde had been chairman of Telemundo and the company’s international business. Conde will now lead an expanded news division that combines all TV and streaming operations, according to reports published by the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

› Sarasota cutting $2.9 million in city spending
The economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak is immense, and the city of Sarasota has not escaped the financial ramifications. Sarasota is facing over an estimated $1.8 million hit to various revenue sources and $770,000 to its parking funds, city documents show. As a result, the city has eliminated part-time employee hours for its parks department and parking enforcement.

› Tampa Downtown Partnership to give $1,000 grants to 50 small businesses
The nonprofit Tampa Downtown Partnership said Monday it will give $1,000 grants totaling $50,000 to pandemic-stricken businesses inside the city’s downtown special services district. “These grants will not have to be repaid," partnership president and chief executive officer Lynda Remund said in announcing the Tampa’s Downtown Reinvestment and Relief Fund, or “Refund," grant program.

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