Governor Rick Scott’s office found a job for Carl Littlefield, their former head of the Agency of Persons with Disabilities. Littlefield resigned, ducking the opportunity to testify in front of a Senate panel about a Tampa area group home that allowed residents to have sex.
Littlefield’s new job has become a problem for Scott, who has demanded the elimination of 1,849 full time jobs at the same state agency.
The governor asserts that he’s only trying to bridge wide holes such as the estimated $174 million deficit at the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.
“That agency has not lived within its budget as far as I can tell,” Scott explained. “I don’t know when it ever did. And so everybody just kicked the can and never really held them accountable and looked at how they could spend that money better.”
In 1992, Littlefield, who has a high school diploma, won election to the newly created Florida House District 61 seat.
He was known as a socially conservative legislator that supported bills, attempted to reform welfare, require parental notification for minors seeking abortions and perform background checks of nursing home personnel. He sponsored a law that allowed consumers to get a 30 day money-back guarantee on hearing aids.
He went for his dream job: head of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs.
“I probably don’t have the credentials academically, in geriatrics and other fields, but I would be a good advocate,” he shared with the St. Petersburg Times in 1998.
Governor Jeb Bush gave him the job. Shortly after, he was shifted to the Department of Children and Families in 1999 and put in charge of developmental disabilities statewide.