THE FLORIDA CABINET MEETS JANUARY 18

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink will be onboard for her first Cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 18. She is one of three state-wide elected officials comprising the Florida Cabinet with Attorney General Bill McCollum and Commissioner Charles Bronson. 

The governor is the popularly elected chief executive of Florida, but the three members of the Cabinet are elected by the people and serve as a collective decision- and rule-making body for the state along with the governor. Each Cabinet member serves a four-year term with a two-term limit and is wholly responsible for the administration of at least one state department. CFO Sink oversees the Department of Financial Services. The Governor is responsible for the administration of most other state agencies.
Together with Governor Charlie Crist, the Cabinet acts as the board of directors for the following agencies: 

                  
Cabinet Day serves as Florida’s town meeting with the public’s business transacted in an open forum. These meetings afford the general public an opportunity to watch their state government in action. 

Cabinet meetings are publicly noticed and usually occur every other week on Tuesdays in the Cabinet meeting room of the Capitol building.  Each Cabinet member has aides on staff for Cabinet duties, important for conducting Cabinet business. Cabinet aides weigh public opinion, communicate with other members' aides, and engage in investigating and researching issues. Before the Cabinet meets, the aides thoroughly brief Cabinet members on the issues. Cabinet aides' meetings usually occur on Wednesdays prior to Cabinet meetings so that proponents and opponents of issues will have a public forum in which to express concerns.
 

The next Cabinet meeting will be held on January 18, 2007.

*Chief Financial Officer Sink serves with Governor Crist and Attorney General McCollum as the State Board of Administration.