Things To Do In SW Florida

Tourism marketing agency Visit Orlando, credited with helping build Central Florida into the nation’s top vacation place, might have misappropriated nearly $20 million in tourist-tax revenue by improperly classifying the money as private rather than public funds, Orange County auditors say.

“It’s very hard to parse out from the records which funds are which,” said assistant comptroller Wendy Kittleson, who raised the possibility Tuesday during a three-hour public discussion of Visit Orlando’s spending practices with the Board of County Commissioners.

She stressed the $19.9 million figure was an estimate based on Visit Orlando’s private revenues dating back to 2019, the year county leaders signed the agency’s funding contract. The agency’s public revenues are subject to stricter spending rules than its private funds.

The guess flabbergasted Casandra Matej, president & CEO of Visit Orlando, who appeared before the commission to respond to a withering comptroller’s examination of her organization, which gets over $100 million a year in hotel and short-term lodging tax revenue to promote tourism. read more

In an unusual move, multiple groups advocating for utility customers filed an alternative proposal Tuesday that they said should resolve Florida Power & Light’s rate case. Signing onto this settlement is the Office of Public Counsel, the Legislature-appointed advocate for all utility customers statewide.

One entity that opposes the deal: Florida Power & Light.

The new proposal would roughly halve the company’s original request to hike customer rates by nearly $10 billion over four years, which is believed to be the highest rate hike request in American history. Instead, this version would result in a $5.2 billion increase.

The company filed its own proposed settlement last week, with the support of big-business groups involved in the case, such as Walmart and industrial corporations. That settlement lowered the total hikes to about $7 billion, but granted large corporations a higher percentage discount than residents next year, while the 2026 hike for small businesses tripled. read more

By ALAN SUDERMAN

President Donald Trump’s personal crypto ventures are expanding again, this time with plans for a digital asset treasury company that holds an alternative cryptocurrency.

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Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social media platform, announced Tuesday that it was partnering with the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com to form a company that holds CRO, a token created by Crypto.com. A blank check company tied to Yorkville Advisors is another co-founder of the new firm, called Trump Media CRO Strategy. read more

By Alex Brown, Stateline.org

Mandates from President Donald Trump’s administration to retain aging coal plants could cause a massive spike in energy costs, according to an independent analysis commissioned by several environmental groups.

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Orders from the U.S. Department of Energy to save coal plants from retirement could cost ratepayers more than $3 billion per year, according to a report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. It was carried out on behalf of Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club. read more

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ view of the U.S. economy declined modestly in August as anxiety over a weakening job market grew for the eighth straight month.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index ticked down by 1.3 points to 97.4 in August, down from July’s 98.7, but in the same narrow range of the past three months.

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The small decline in confidence was in line with the forecasts of most of the economists who were surveyed.

A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market fell by 1.2 points to 74.8, remaining significantly below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. read more