Gov. Rick Scott discussed his departing Chief of Staff Steve MacNamara, the curved grades of the state’s FCAT results, and next week’s trip to Spain while on WFLA 100.7 FM Wednesday morning.

Spain

“We’ve got over 300 Spanish companies that do business in Florida, I want 1,000 of them. Whatever the number is, I want more than what we have.

“What the goal is, to get Spanish companies to invest more in Florida, Spanish companies to do more business in Florida, and also I want the king and queen of Spain to come over and help us celebrate our Viva 500, which next year, 2013, will be the 500th anniversary of when Ponce de Leon discovered la Florida.

“I want a big celebration next year.  Instead of 85 million tourists next year, I want significant more tourism because we have something to celebrate.”

FCATs

“This is controlled by the Board of Education. I understand what they’re doing, they’re going back and they’re looking at why that happened, to see if there was something in the way the test was put together.

“I like the fact that they immediately took on this, they made sure to let everybody know they were doing this quickly.  We all know the more we raise the bar, we all seem to get better. So I like that, that we have standards.”

MacNamara

“Steve did a great job. If  you think about what I think about every day, I think about your family, how to make sure your children get a great education; how to make sure you can get a job and your kids can get a job when they get out of school, and keep the costs of living low.

“If you think about what Steve has helped me get done: We worked through the budget and got $1 billion more for K through 12. Second, look at what we got done this session and Steve was very helpful. We reduced the business tax; now we’ve got two-thirds of the companies aren’t paying anything. We passed legislation that allows business to buy machinery and equipment and not paying sales tax. We do that and those businesses are going to hire more people. And we got this PIP auto accident reform done and Steve was very helpful in that.

“Steve was invaluable to me getting my agenda done this session and that is what I think about all the time.”

Adam Hollingsworth

“He’s a steady hand. He’s going to help me get my agenda done.”