Scott’s chief of staff resigns amid $5.5M no-bid contract scandal, ethics complaint

Gov. Rick Scott has been quick to jump in front of reporters to talk about the need to investigate the financial records of the Marching 100. But it turns out that the governor's chief of staff has a history of financial shenanigans that is almost as embarrassing as Scott's.

Scott's chief of staff, Steve MacNamara, is resigning in the wake of headlines accusing him of using state money to reward political cronies and possibly violating the state’s ethics laws.

According to the Orlando Sentinel: "A series of stories in the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times over the last week detailed a no-bid contract he helped steer to the business partner of a close friend, and an ethics complaint was filed over his use of state employees to help prepare his resume for a Montana academic job opening."

The Tampa Bay Times reported that MacNamara, who is a tenured professor at Florida State University, used his former position as chief of staff for the Florida Senate to help a business partner of one of his close friends receive a $5.5M no-bid software project contract in 2011. Scott hired him serve as his own chief of staff later that year.

MacNamara currently faces an ethics complaint that alleges he had employees in the governor’s office assist him in updating a resume he prepared for his application for the presidency of Carroll College in Montana.

There were already reports that MacNamara planned to step down in about six months to move to Vermont with his wife, but the negative media reports apparently pushed him to depart early. His resignation will go into effect on July 1.  

MacNamara publicly attacked the independent task force on hazing that FAMU President James H. Ammons appointed last year. He said the inspector generals of the governor's office and Florida Board of Governors (BOG) were "better suited" to investigate the hazing problem than FAMU's independent task force.

"In my opinion, we don't need duplication and dueling tasks forces and the Inspector Generals are much better suited to review this matter than the group assembled," MacNamara wrote in a November 29 email to the BOG.

MacNamara also gave a bumbling statement to press after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools scolded Scott for trying to pressure the FAMU Board of Trustees to suspend Ammons.

"He is not lobbying board members and will not,” he said. "We await the letter from [SACS President Belle Wheelan] and I am sure she will not be threatening FAMU with losing its accreditation based on the governor's statement. The governor will continue to express his opinion on issues he feels strongly about."