The first quarter of 2014 is the beginning of lobbyist compensation reporting under the new guidelines promulgated by the Legislature. The new rules expressly prohibit double counting client fees; that is, assigning the full fee to both the legislative and executive branches.
This already appears to be a big kicker for those lobbyists who have been able to inflate the appearance of their compensation by double reporting.
In fact, the amount lobbyists were paid during the first three months of the year to represent clients in the Legislature is down more than two million dollars from the first quarter of 2013.
Lobbyists were paid an estimated $32.36 million during Q1 to represent clients before the Legislature, according to a state report posted online Thursday. They were paid $34.6 million during the same period in 2013.
Isn’t it ironic that with the threat of compensation audits hanging over Adams Street a lot of people got better at math?
Material from the News Service of Florida was used in this post.
