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The WayneWho staff caught an interesting article in the Osceola News Gazette this past week that stated, "With the highest unemployment rate and the lowest average annual wage in Central Florida, Osceola County officials admit there’s work to be done to improve the county’s standings". The article discusses a report done by the quasi-governmental agency Workforce Central Florida where it showed the county’s average annual wage over the last two years had increased from about $30,000 to $33,332, but was still the lowest average out of the five-county region (Osceola, Orange, Lake, Sumter and Seminole counties) the tax-funded agency oversees. We assume that the author of the Gazette's article threw in this information in as a quick 'FYI' because we think that most people who are trying to live in Osceola county are already aware of how bad the situation is.

This report was in the news because it was presented last week to the Osceola County Commission who took the information more like a golf score than they did as an indicator of how critical the community's situation is. As quoted from the Gazette, from the commissioners, "the county still had work to do to help it improve its figures in comparison to the other counties." Basically they said, we don't really care about how bad it is in Osceola County as long as we do not look as bad on paper as the other counties do. To prove this Commission Chairman Quiñones championed the county's back up plan of relying on job creation outside of the county in areas like Lake Nona. Quiñones noted that "We need to do everything that we can to diversify our economy, and not depend on just one or two industries.” This explains why the commission is 100% focused on relying on the 'Lake Nona Medical Strip Mall and Car Wash' as the savior of Osceola County's economy.

The County has decided it can improve its unemployment appearance by having government agencies hire more people itself. The WayneWho staff was e-mailed an interesting link the other day that contained a link to a job posting on Monster.com for a Governmental Affairs Officer. The job listing is described as "The incumbent advocates Osceola County’s position at all jurisdictional levels as instructed by the County Manager," which means the job is basically to agree with everything the County Manager says, and then to go tell everyone else how great the County Manager's ideas are. Even if common sense tells you his ideas are bad, it is your jobs to tell everyone how great the ideas are. The job could pay upwards of $96,000 and has plenty of county benefits. That is good pay for a position that does not benefit the taxpayers in any fashion. The pay seems excessive to the WayneWho staff since we found a "HAND FED 2 YEAR OLD MALE SOLOMON ISLAND ECLECTUS. COMES WITH 2 CAGES ONE NEWER CAGE PLAYSTAND, TOYS ETC. TAME AND TALKS, GREAT BIRD, EASY KEEPER" on CraigsList.com in St. Cloud Florida for $1250.00. This sounds like a much better deal on a pet for the County Manager than $96,000 per year. We guess that depends on how much the public is willing to pay for the crackers.