The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 34

2 BUSINESS WEDNESDAY. APRIL 11. 2007 THE TAMPA TRIBUNE TBO.com NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT Disney Treads Carefully Creating 1st" Black Princess appears the prince in the story is not black, which has raised dissatisfaction. There are also people criticizing the creation of yet another cartoon princess whose story, they contend, undermines a modern message of individual empowerment. Disney risks having well-intended attempts backfire if the story doesn't resonate with, or offends, certain viewers.

It's a problem the company has run into with previous films featuring characters of color. Disney officials have declined comment on aspects of the film beyond the news release they issued in March when they announced the film at their meeting in New Orleans. "We're very proud and excited about this," John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios and director of "Toy Story" and "Cars," said at the time. "This is a fantastic story. This movie is going to be classic Disney, yet you've never seen one like it before." To its credit, Disney has a reputation for being progressive in of daughter near The Disney Store.

"It lets you know that you have no limitations." Like other Disney features, "The Frog Princess" is bound to resonate not only with black Americans, but also with children of all backgrounds. Eight other "Disney Princess" characters generated more than $3 billion in retail sales last year. Five Disney Princess films rank among the entertainment conglomerate's top six video releases of all time. Disney unveiled Maddy at its annual shareholders' meeting in March, even summoning Randy Newman's Dirty Dozen Brass Band for a performance. The award-winning Newman will write the music for the movie, which will be set in 1920s New Orleans and be hand-drawn rather than computer-generated.

But the announcement of the princess Maddy hasn't settled the issue. Information about "The Frog Princess," including a list of characters put forth in a voice-actor casting call, quickly spread across the Internet. It ever since the release of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," its first animated feature, in 1937. In 1992, the animated version of "Aladdin" featured its first princess of color, Jasmine, of Arabian descent. Since then, Disney has had animated film hits featuring an American Indian princess, Pocahontas, in 1995 and an Asian heroine, Mulan, in 1998.

But even as real-life black actresses and actors have won major awards and helped dissolve barriers in the film industry in recent years, a divide remained for cartoon princesses on the big screen. Black families have clamored for a Disney character crafted in their image, even circulating petitions. If that seems overly anxious about a cartoon, it also underscores the power of fictional princesses to become role models for girls. "It's always good to have positive stories and positive images, where the main character is of your background," said John Powell of Salisbury, shopping with his wife and THE FROG PRINCESS' IS DUE OUT IN 2 YEARS By JOE BURRIS The Baltimore Sun The damsel cast an image of striking beauty: mocha-colored skin, captivating eyes, coiffured hair, posing in a feathery dress and see-through veil. For a character that won't be in an animated movie for another two years, her arrival has been the subject of discussion for years long before she was ever drawn.

Maddy, a 19-year-old heroine to be featured in the film "The Frog Princess," will be Disney animation's first black leading lady. That makes her the sole black woman among a group of cartoon icons that bring out the inner princess in preteen girls worldwide characters such as Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel and Mulan. Some say Maddy's debut is long overdue. Disney's characters have become firmly etched in American lore "They're making tons of money. How does the government allow that?" OLIVER MARTI Investment firm partner and portfolio manager, on Medicaid HMOs fering characters that appeal to people of all backgrounds, particularly on television.

However, on the big screen, Disney's depictions of people of color occasionally have raised objections. Even as Disney was introducing Maddy, it faced concerns about plans for the DVD release of its 1946 film "Song of the South," which has been criticized for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. And while Princess Jasmine got a favorable response from moviegoers, the film "Aladdin" was criticized as anti-Arab. Entertainment Weekly ranked "Aladdin" 25th among its "25 Most Controversial Movies Ever," noting the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's protest over the lyrics in the film's first song, "Arabian Nights." Those lyrics are: "They cut off your ear if they don't like your face. It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home." Disney changed the lyrics for the video release.

What perplexes Chari and other academics is that there are more IT-related jobs available today than ever before. For example, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics lists IT-related jobs as some of the most in-demand professions. Computer-related professions occupy three of the top 10 fastest-growing occupations between 2004 and 2014, according to BLS projections. The combination of low student enrollment and high business demand is having a profound effect on business, university professors say. On a recent weekday, JPMorgan Chase Vice President Jim Meinen visited one of Chari's MIS classes to drum up interest in his company.

He related a story about how JPMorgan Chase recently sought applicants for 10 technology interns in Tampa, but only four students applied. That's despite the "serious money" that the bank was offering interns, Meinen said. He wouldn't be more specific on intern pay. Colleges Adjust To Offshoring Threat Despite the huge demand for IT workers, some college MIS and computer science departments are taking the offshoring threat seriously. Many schools are taking steps to teach skills that can't be sent abroad.

For example, Chari now requires his students to take only one computer programming course, where he required two in the past. Businesses are telling Chari that they need fewer basic programmers and more LT professionals with management skills. Where basic programming can be done anywhere in the world, Chari says, businesses can't easily offshore jobs in "project management," in which an IT worker coordinates IT projects, Chari says. At the University of Tampa, the business school has created a new major called Financial Services Operations and Systems, which will marry project management skills with finance courses. The idea is to help companies such as JPMorgan Chase find enough workers that they will keep offices in Florida, business school Dean Joe McCann said.

One of Chari's undergraduate students, Bryan Gough, said he switched out of a computer programming course track at USF and into the MIS track that includes management training. He did it partly because he wanted to develop skills that couldn't easily be moved to a foreign country. "They can outsource all the lower-level jobs, but they can never outsource management," Gough said. Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at msassommpatrib.com or (813) 259-7865. AND I tAIGHT PUNCH YOU FOR NOT SHAVING THE BACK OF YOUR NECK.

WELL THEN, E-rAAIL IT IS. JOBS' 'OFFSHOREABILITY' Princeton economist Alan Blinder published a study last month on how many jobs might be at risk of being "offshored, or sent overseas in the next 10 to 20 years. Here is a sample showing the wide range of categories that Blinder considers to have a high potential for being offshored: Occupation No. of workers Computer programmers 389,090 Telemarketers 400,860 Computer systems analysts 492,120 Bookkeeping, auditing and accounting clerks 1,815,340 Mathematicians- 2,930 Actuaries 15,770 Film and video editors 15,200 Graphic designers 178,530 Medical transcriptionists 90,380 Architectural and civil drafters ..101,040 Source: "How Many Jobs Might Be Offshoreable?" Alan Blinder, Princeton University, March 2007 computer science and engineering department has been hit. In 2000, computer scienceengineering awarded up to 140 bachelor's degrees, but that has since fallen to about 105 graduates today, department Chairman Rangachar Kasturi said.

He doesn't have good numbers on how many students enter the program as undergraduates, but he fears it may have fallen by up to 50 percent. Florida State University: David Paradice, chair of the MIS department, said FSU once had as many as 500 MIS majors during the dot-com boom years. Today it is down to 120, he said. University of Florida: Undergraduate enrollment within UF's Computer Information Science and Engineering Department peaked at 1,700 students in 2000 but has since fallen to about 700, program Chair Sartaj Sahni said. It Started With Dot-Com Bust Computer science and MIS professors say their enrollments began falling after the dot-com boom went bust and students no longer saw LT as a way to get rich quick.

However, "the decline to a great extent has to do with the perception that there will be no jobs for these students when they get out of school," Sahni said. The enrollment drop isn't limited to Florida. On Tuesday, Martha Pollack, chairwoman of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Michigan, said her department is down to about 350 students today from nearly 700 several years ago. I NEED IT IN WRITING BECAUSE YOU'RE A HUGE LIAR AND YOU'LL CHANGE YOUR STORY LATER. FIGHTING 0FFSH0RING Continued From Page 1 Just recently, some schools have seen a slight upturn in students entering the computer fields.

However, nationwide some computer-related schools report enrollment that is down 70 percent from their peaks during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. Until there's a full rebound, schools are reaching out to potential students through any means. Florida State University is holding movie nights with technology themes and free popcorn. Meanwhile, schools are trying to "outsource-proof their graduates by emphasizing skills that cannot be outsourced and playing down skills that can. How many jobs are shifting overseas is a difficult and moving target.

Last month, a prominent economist at Princeton University suggested that up to 29 percent of all jobs in the U.S. work force will be potentially "offshoreable" in the next two decades (using 2004 workforce data). The economist, Alan Blinder, said those jobs may be at risk, but he didn't speculate how many jobs will be sent overseas. Blinder's projections don't just include low-end jobs such as customer service workers and data entry clerks, but also include jobs such as financial analysts, computer systems analysts and accountants. No More Than 3 Offshored, Study Says Other experts don't go as far as Blinder.

A computer industry trade group, the Association for Computing Machinery, organized a group of IT industry experts to study offshoring. Last year, the group suggested that no more than 3 percent of IT jobs in the United States are moved offshore annually, which is less turnover than occurs normally throughout the economy. Still, fear has welled up in some students who otherwise would consider IT-related jobs. Affected are computer science and engineering schools, which teach students how to design computer operating systems and languages, and business schools, which teach management information systems. Loosely put, MIS professionals create and manage computer software and networks for businesses, such as payroll or supply chain programs.

Among schools affected are: USF: Aside from Chari's Information Systems department, USF's DILBERT By Scott Adams E-rAAIL rAE LJITH YOUR COIArAENTS ON THE DESIGN. CANT I JUST TELL YOU fAY COtAfAENTS NOW? HOW TO CONTACT US payments to cover medical treatment for enrollees. If the plan spends more on a member, it loses money, and if it spends less, it makes a profit. Most Medicaid beneficiaries are healthy children, but the program has high costs for some disabled children and adults. Florida Medicaid HMO payments, which vary by gender, age and geography, average $199.40 per member per month this year, Snipes said.

If the AHCA budget passes as submitted, that rate will rise to $222.73. WellCare set up its reinsurance arrangement with a trigger of $50,000. A member who has more medical costs than that will be taken over by Comprehensive Reinsurance Ltd. Cassara, the WellCare spokeswoman, said the Goldman, Sachs report errs by applying Wall Street-style analysis to a Medicaid arena. "The report uses aggregate data to make assumptions that are not reflective of our multiple lines of business," she wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune.

The company says its 2006 net income margin was only 3.7 percent, "lower than many of our competitors in the industry," Cassara wrote. But Goldman, Sachs and CIBC World Markets say they calculate the company's income in. double digits. "The issue is that Florida relies primarily on data regarding cost-trend increases to determine rate increases, rather than profitability," McDonald wrote in his analysis for CIBC investors in March. "Therefore, it will likely take some kind of external influence to convince the legislature in the state that Medicaid managed care payment rates could be a source of savings," McDonald said in the report.

The state doesn't take related entities into account in figuring the margins for Medicaid HMOs, but Wall Street analysts do. McDonald and Borsch used GAAP analysis generally accepted accounting principles to determine that Florida plans are making more profit than it appears and spending less on medical treatment: 81 cents of the premium dollar. WellCare deals exclusively with government clients. About half of its members are Medicare beneficiaries in prescription drug plans. The beneficiaries are scattered across the nation.

The other half are in state Medicaid plans. In Florida, WellCare is by far the largest Medicaid plan, with more than 450,000 enrolled. AmeriGroup is second, with about 200,000. Of the $1.7 billion the state paid HMOs last year, WellCare's two plans took in half, almost $850 million. Reporter Carol Gentry can be reached at (813) 259-7624.

WELLCARE PROFIT Continued From Page 1 Goldman, Sachs and another firm, CCI Healthcare Partners, have teams examining the April 1 Well-Care filings with state insurance commissioners in Florida and New York, trying to figure out what enables the Tampa-based company to be so much more profitable than its competitors. "They're making tons of money," said Oliver Marti, a partner and portfolio manager at CCI, a Stamford, investment firm. "How does the government allow that?" The answer, according to CIBC's McDonald and Matthew Borsch, vice president of Goldman, Sachs, is that WellCare is able to shift millions in profit to a sister company, Comprehensive Reinsurance in the Cayman Islands. WellCare's Florida plans sent $62.8 million to the Caymans company, which paid out $31.7 million, the filings show. Most managed-care plans have reinsurance margins of zero to 4 percent, Borsch said, but WellCare's was many orders of magnitude higher.

The Florida plans would have reported earnings 66 percent higher than they did if they had kept reinsurance payments in line with the industry, Borsch said. WellCare questioned both Borsch's motives and math. "Analysts often sensationalize routine information to generate trading volume and profit," wrote spokeswoman Carol Cassara in the first of several e-mails to The Tampa Tribune in response to claims made by Borsch and others. Not only is it legal for WellCare to conduct business with an affiliated company, she wrote, the arrangement was approved by Florida regulators in advance. Jonathon Kees, spokesman for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, confirmed that an actuary there approved WellCare's Cayman reinsurance affiliate.

Kees noted that his agency's main duty is to make sure insurers have sufficient assets to cover their risk. The decision to seek the 11.7 percent rate increase for Medicaid HMOs came from Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration. Dyke Snipes, assistant deputy secretary for Medicaid finance witli the AIICA, said the managed-care payments are pegged to the traditional Medicaid fee-for-service plan. Snipes said he found the suggestion that HMO payments were too generous "surprising" and said he would have his staff study the Goldman, Sachs analysis. Medicaid pays HMOs monthly Our address.

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