Pam Bondi sets stage for attorney general tenure, makes notable hire

TALLAHASSEE -- New hires and changes in the structure of the attorney general's office have set the stage for Pam Bondi's tenure as the first woman to serve as Florida's chief legal officer.

Bondi said she will likely push for legislation to tighten Florida's regulation of pain clinics. BP oil spill claims, Medicaid fraud and gangs will also be areas of emphasis, she said.

Most significant: On Friday, Bondi named former state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, to a new post focusing on prescription pill abuse.

``He's very familiar with this issue. He cares very deeply about this issue,'' Bondi, a Republican, said of Aronberg, who lost the Democratic primary for attorney general.

The fact that he's a Democrat, she said, doesn't matter.

``What I want to do is bring people together on all sides who all care about the issue,'' she said.

The position is the only post Bondi has created in an organization with more than 1,100 employees. She is otherwise streamlining the office by eliminating three high-level jobs to trim $250,000 from the budget.

Shortly after her election, Bondi signaled she planned to make pain clinics that excessively dole out prescription drugs -- so-called pill mills -- a focus of her office. She set up a transition team that included Aronberg to examine the problem.

`CRITICAL POINT'

``We're at a critical point in our state regarding the number of pill mills. The numbers are staggering. We've got to do something to stop it,'' Bondi said. ``Just the other day I had someone say that a friend's child overdosed. I said, `It was Oxycontin, wasn't it?' They said, `How did you know?' It's so widespread in our state. That's something we don't want to be known for.''

Bondi's move is likely to come as good news to people concerned that Gov.-elect Rick Scott opted to cut the Office of Drug Control. Aronberg will be based in South Florida and earn $92,000 a year as special counsel for the pill mill initiative.

Oil spill claims are another priority.

``BP has certainly risen to the top of my radar,'' Bondi said.

She said she understands that her predecessor, Bill McCollum, wanted to give BP claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg time to respond to state residents hurt by the oil spill. But his time is up, Bondi said.

One concern is documents people signed releasing BP from further claims. Bondi worries that some business owners agreed to those terms before knowing the extent of their losses.

``I want to look at the legality of the releases they signed,'' she said. A team will focus on BP, including Trish Conners, who worked on the matter for McCollum.

And then there's Medicaid fraud. Medicaid consumes about 28 percent of Florida's budget, and Bondi said curbing fraud is one way to rein in those costs. The approach is likely to change though, Bondi said, if the Legislature moves Medicaid patients into managed care programs. In the current system, fraud investigators look at such things as billing patterns by a pharmacy or doctor's office. In managed care, finding fraud requires reviewing contracts.

``We have to go to a different policing system. We'll need to have more auditors and forensic accountants involved,'' she said.

Bondi also plans to organize statewide efforts to combat gangs.

``We're going to create a statewide team,'' she said. ``That also has to include an educational component. You have to prosecute, of course, the gang members. But you also have to try to prevent kids from joining gangs.''

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