Jeb Bush kept a tight lid on the problems his policies created in Florida while he was in office. But Jeb’s gone now and that famous Florida sunshine is shining in the cracks once so snuggly covered.

Take privatization for example. Even a Republican state senator is appalled at the sweet deal Jeb’s prison contractors enjoyed.

Alarmed by millions of dollars in overpayments the state made to a private prison contractor, a state senator called for a criminal investigation Thursday.

[Sen. Victor] Crist asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look at the contract between GEO Group of Boca Raton and the state Correctional Privatization Commission, which was disbanded in 2004 amid allegations of mismanagement and cronyism.

A 2005 state audit revealed that over an eight-year period GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, another private contractor, were overpaid $4.5-million.

The Correctional Privatization Commission also gave GEO $5-million in cost-of-living salary adjustments that, auditors said, were not fully passed on to employees.

At the Quincy facility, Corrections Corp., of Nashville, got $2.9-million more for facility maintenance than it spent.

The news is even worse about Jeb’s other flagships: the “A-Plus” and later, “A-Plus-Plus” education schemes. Starving public schools by diverting taxpayer funding into vouchers for private schools and penalizing budgets based on standardized tests, as well as doing away with affirmative action in public universities were all part of Jeb’s libertarian plan to undermine state-sponsored education.

And it’s all working, though not as Jeb planned. More people are leaving Florida than moving in.

In 2006, what the industry calls “outbound” moves actually surpassed “inbounds,” according to data from United, Atlas and Allied van lines. The industry had seen a steady increase in the number of customers heading out of the state in the past five years.

…The moving company statistics seem to indicate that those who are leaving are likely to be middle- and upper-middle class individuals who can afford moving vans, [University of Florida researcher Jim] Dewey said. They also could be families with children who are unhappy with the state’s funding for K-12 education, he said.

Department of Education statistics appear to support Dewey’s hunch. While state enrollment has grown an average of 51,000 students annually since 1989, regular enrollment in 2005 grew by only about 30,000 children.

The numbers were down again at the start of the 2006 school year, even in districts with normally climbing enrollment such as Orange, Manatee and Palm Beach.

In Pinellas, the decline in student enrollment was nearly twice what the district expected.

The former real estate developer governor’s policies toward growth, or should I say, “Let the party begin!” have also taken a toll.

…the spike in house prices in the last five years in Florida has made coming here less of a bargain.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise to me that there is a temporary slow down,” Dewey said. “Real estate here has gone way up.”

…Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James Financial in St. Petersburg, said it’s no exaggeration to say Florida is at a crisis point. “You’re always going to have the weather attracting people, and it’s still a very business friendly environment,” Brown said. “But it’s a difficult issue. It’s a very serious concern for Florida.”

And yet there are those who actually miss Jeb’s trademark sneer. Check back in another year or two and I bet even they will be glad he’s gone.