By: Alex Leary
Source: tampabay.com
Former Florida House Speaker, Ray Sansom works quickly when it comes to committing taxpayer monies, as it took a mere 22 minutes to get his support on $8 million for a “leadership institute” at his hometown college.
College president Bob Richburg counseled that getting the money would “involve some special legislative strategy,” and Sansom quietly delivered for his future boss at Northwest Florida State College.
Tuesday, a five-member legislative panel will begin to investigate Sansom’s dealings with the small Panhandle college and whether he damaged public “faith and confidence in the integrity of the Florida House of Representatives.” Over two years before he became speaker, Sansom directed $35 million in extra or accelerated funding for the school.
Then, on the same day last November the Destin Republican was sworn in as speaker, Sansom took an unadvertised $110,000-a-year job at the college, a position for which he helped write the job description months earlier. His duties included oversight of the institute, according to investigative files.
Hangar isn’t former state House Speaker Ray Sansom’s only problem
