It would be easy to bemoan our fate, to decry the fact that we have been chosen or cursed to serve in such trying circumstances. … Let me remind you that our nation, and our state, has dealt with difficulties before, and we will again. Throughout history our state has weathered tough times and survived. It endured because the men and women of those times, the women and the men who sat in these very chairs, rose to the occasion, recognizing the great gift they were being offered to lead during the defining time of their generation. Senators, destiny has offered you such an opportunity…
-Senate President Jeff Atwater
from his Jan. 5, 2009 remarks at the opening of the Special Legislative Session to address the constitutional requirements of a balanced budget.
Jeff Atwater’s story is a Florida story – values instilled by Greatest Generation parents, education and hard work as a means of getting ahead, and a lifetime of studying the changes his dynamic home state has wrought over the last 50 years.
That lifetime study has given him a distinctive perspective to assess the direction in which the state should be headed. That – plus a firm belief that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others – has shaped his eight distinguished years in the Florida Legislature.
Jeff Atwater, currently serves as Florida’s Chief Financial Officer. His past leadership includes Senate President from 2009-2010. He has an MBA from the University of Florida, more than 20 years of banking experience and a background of legislative committee work on insurance, finance, fiscal responsibility and, most important, the burden that taxes and regulations place on small businesses. He is highly respected on both sides of the political divide.
And to serve the people of Florida effectively in these tough times, Chief Financial Officer Atwater, 52, has needed all of his credentials, all of his talent for leadership and what former Senate President Tom Lee identified as his “ability to understand complex issues and identify practical solutions.”
Going into the January 2009 special legislative session, Florida faced unprecedented economic circumstances. The unemployment rate had hit 7.3% – 680,000 Floridians out of work with 206,000 jobs lost in the previous 12 months. Some 1.7 million residents – 10% of the state’s population – were on Food Stamps. Florida had recorded the second highest foreclosure rate in the country. And its revenue collections – the money that pays for all of the state’s programs – had fallen off month after month during 2008, not by thousands of dollars but by millions.
In his opening address, Sen. Atwater called on fellow senators to meet their “obligation to re-establish a balanced budget.”
When the extended, 67-day 2009 session ended, certainly many of the state’s problems remained unsolved. But the Senate was applauded for its effort to stay on task. Sen. Atwater was credited with navigating key pieces of legislature through perilous waters, for holding off efforts to burden families and businesses with excessive taxes while streamlining government to increase efficiency, eliminate duplicative services and reduce costs. He also found a way to increase funding for K-12 education and for the protection of the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Because funding for local-only projects – often referred to as “turkeys” – was reduced almost to zero, only 238 bills were passed, lowest total in a decade. That strong show of frugality and common sense was a sure byproduct of Sen. Atwater’s leadership.
One of six children, Chief Financial Officer Atwater has a strong political pedigree. His great-grandfather was Napolean Bonaparte Broward, governor of Florida from 1905 to 1909, after whom Broward County was named. And Hardee County was named after his mother’s second cousin, Cary Hardee, Florida governor from 1921 to 1925. He was known in his family and among his friends for his hard work, his sense of responsibility and patriotism – but never for any desire to run for office.
Friends and family say the person he most tries to emulate is his late father, John Stafford Atwater, a veteran World War II fighter pilot and celebrated FBI agent who later became police chief of the village of North Palm Beach.
In fact, it was a decade and a half ago when the senator stood on a hillside at Normandy with his dad, looking at the thousands of crosses marking graves of D-Day victims, that he had one of the real epiphanies of his life – that he first felt the call to run for public office. “You just can’t look upon that field and say, ‘I’ve done enough,’” Chief Financial Officer Atwater recalled.
He was elected to the North Palm Beach Village Council in 1993 but resigned a year later when his employer reassigned him to Vero Beach. In 1998 he returned to Palm Beach County, and in 2000, when a north-county state House seat came open, he ran against two Republican opponents in the primary, winning 71.2 percent of the vote there, then taking the seat outright in the general election with 57.6 percent of the vote.
With his high energy and collegiality, he quickly made his mark in the House. In 2002, seeing an opportunity to serve a large group of constituents in Florida’s upper chamber, he entered the race for Senate District 25, which encompasses the coastal areas of Palm Beach and Broward counties. After a long, hard-fought campaign, he won the Senate seat against a formidable opponent, taking 55.2% of the vote.
During his tenure in the Florida Senate, Sen. Atwater’s accomplishments have been legion. He was a key framer of the Senate’s constitutional reform package. He championed legislation to help migrant workers’ families, local hospitals and trauma centers. Under the leadership of former Senate President Tom Lee, he was appointed chair of the Government Efficiency Committee, which worked to streamline Florida’s programs and spending.
He worked on finding ways to provide financial relief to hurricane victims, to secure continued funding for community programs for mental health care, HIV/AIDS outreach and Alzheimer’s care. And he took on the difficult job of making Medicaid more available, affordable and sustainable. He also helped obtain $5 million for Lake Worth Lagoon and Loxahatchee River restoration projects and supported Florida Forever, the restoration of Lake Okeechobee and ongoing beach renourishment.
Sen. Atwater passed legislation creating stricter penalties for providing false information during a criminal investigation – legislation inspired by the Jessica Lunsford Act. He was also successful in passing tax exemptions for farmers and manufacturers, earning him the Legislator of the Year award from the Florida Farm Bureau, Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Manufacturer’s Association of Florida and Beall’s Department Store. He also worked to repeal the intangibles tax, which discarded the final ½-mil of tax on intangible assets.
Sen. Atwater raised the ire of Big Insurance by initiating tough property insurance reform. He supported the Capital Investment Tax Credit Program, an incentive plan aimed at improving Florida’s business climate by providing tax credits for businesses. He fiercely opposed a proposal during the 2009 legislative session to impose a state income tax. “I don’t see this crisis as a chance to raise taxes,” he said. “I see it as a chance to cut spending.”
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater is a public servant who believes in the dignity of every citizen, in every citizen’s right to fulfill his dream of owning a home or starting a business or securing the future for his children and grandchildren. He considers removing the obstacles that would hinder that right the most important job he does.
Chief Financial Officer Atwater is an active member of the community. He serves on several advisory boards such as United Way of Palm Beach County, Boy Scouts of America, 5-Star Magnet Program of Palm Beach Gardens High School and the Roger Dean Stadium. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Northern Palm Beaches Chamber of Commerce and the Children’s Home Society of Broward County.
Chief Financial Officer Atwater lives in North Palm Beach with his wife, Carole, and their four children.
