Rick Scott's Taxpayer Waste Czar Got $400,00 No-Bid Contract in Taxpayer Money

Abraham Uccello, the man appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to head a task force to reduce waste in state government, once received a $400,000 no-bid contact from the state to provide "technology consulting." Uccello, by the way, is close friends with Steve MacNamara, Scott's chief of staff.Here's a good idea...

By Kyle Munzenrieder

May 4, 2012

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Abraham Uccello, the man appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to head a task force to reduce waste in state government, once received a $400,000 no-bid contact from the state to provide "technology consulting." Uccello, by the way, is close friends with Steve MacNamara, Scott's chief of staff.

Here's a good idea of how to reduce government waste: don't give lucrative, no-bid contracts to friends of high-ranking government officials!

MacNamara used his position in the state government to urge the Florida Senate to give his friend Uccello the six-figure contact back in 2010.

From the AP:

Uccello and MacNamara are friends, and Uccello sometimes stays with MacNamara when he is in Tallahassee. Uccello also has a state government badge that gives him access to the governor's office.

Last year, MacNamara again used his influence to get Scott to appoint Uccello the head of the Florida Government Efficiency Task Force. He announced an ambitious goal to reduce government spending by $3 billion.

The only information on Uccello that Riptide could dig up is that he's a real estate agent in Sarasota. We're not sure what experience Uccello has in either technology consultation or the reduction of government spending.

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