Daily Record FINANCIAL NEWS &
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2017
Vol. 104, No. 074 • oNe SectioN
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JSO gets $2.7M ask, but with questions
Enterprise Florida cut concerns JAXUSA
Committee concerned IT money not in budget talks
Photo courtesy of Lori Rebman Shad
By Max Marbut, Staff Writer
Photo by Max Marbut
Speaking Thursday to a group whose focus is corporate growth, a key executive said the JAXUSA Partnership receives about a quarter of its economic-development referrals from Enterprise Florida. The fact that the Florida House is considering elimination of the statewide economic-development agency and taxpayer incentives sparks worry. “We’re watching this one. We’re concerned,” Aaron Bowman, JAXUSA senior vice president of business development and a City Council member, told the Association for Corporate Growth North Florida chapter. Bowman, who provided a broad look at Northeast Florida economic development at the lunch meeting at The River Club Downtown, talked about Enterprise Florida in the context of recruiting Amazon.com. The company announced in July it would build a 1,500-job fulfillment center in Northwest Jacksonville, considered the single largest jobs announcement in Jacksonville’s history. In January, it announced an additional 1,200-job center in West Jacksonville at Cecil Commerce Center. Bowman said it was a year ago that JAXUSA, the chamber’s economic-development division, took a call from a development company out of Atlanta. The group wanted to talk about a facility that might locate in Jacksonville. They met, but no corporate name was revealed. A week or two later, JAXUSA took another call asking to meet in Orlando, so it went along with Enterprise Florida. At the meeting “was when I got to meet my new friends from Amazon,” Bowman said. In March, working with the city and
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New Downtown lunch option is a hit The Court: An Urban Food Park debuted Thursday along Hogan Street between Bay and Forsyth streets. The four food trucks set up adjacent to the SunTrust Tower parking garage served nearly 500 customers, which was a pretty good first day, said Mike Field, an organizer of the new Downtown lunch option. “I had no idea people go to lunch so early. There were people here at 10:30 waiting for the trucks to set up,” he said. There will be four vendors at the site 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday, serving a menu that will change each day depending on which of the 20 trucks in the rotation are participating.
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A $2.7 million request from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for new computer hardware was approved Thursday by the City Council Finance Committee — but not without some questions about the timing of the ask and why it was on the committee’s agenda at all. The equipment is needed to update the department’s information technology infrastructure and to prepare for a body camera pilot program that will begin in a few months. Bill Clement, chief of the office’s Budget and Management Division, said the equipment is needed to “bring the network up to speed” but the money is not in the sheriff’s budget. Council member Greg Anderson questioned why the request for the additional appropriation from the general fund is an issue only five months after the city’s spending plan for 2016-17 was enacted. The Sheriff’s Office’s budget is Anderson about $400 million. “This should have been included in JSO’s budget. You should be taking care of those computers,” he said. Clement said the department has been requesting funds for IT upgrades since 2009 — the request was $1.8 million in the 2015-16 budget — but council approved only about $400,000. The Sheriff’s Office has deferred “a lot of maintenance” due to general fund budget constraints, said city Budget Officer Angela Moyer, and the IT equipment is “the last piece” of deferred maintenance. Clement also said the department could no longer put off upgrading its computer network after meeting with body camera vendors and determining the requirements to operate a camera system and process the data collected. FINANCE CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Governor and speaker: Let’s be statesmen
Don’t let dispute over Enterprise Florida devolve to level of Washington politics Gentlemen, gentlemen. Honorable Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, it doesn’t have to be this way. Nor should it be. And, frankly, to one extent, Floridians are surprised it is this way. You are smart men. Plus, you are on the same team and have the same goal: what’s best for Floridians. You both want to see more jobs created here and you both want less government. To another extent, though, because we all are so cynical these days about politicians — thank you, Washington — Florid-
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From the publisher Matt Walsh ians are not so surprised by the rift between you over Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida. Politics has a way of making otherwise smart people do things they otherwise would not. So before this situation reaches the point of no return — need-
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less ugliness, unproductive stalemates and lost respect, trust and friendships, as has occurred in D.C. — if you could indulge me as your personal adviser on this matter, here’s what I would dispense: Cut it out, guys. Don’t make yourselves look like Washington politicians. Americans, and Floridians, are sick to their stomachs over this stuff. In fact, your positions on Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida remind us of the advice we frequently receive from our company’s leadership coach: Stay in
your adult. Be statesmen. Indeed, before this goes any further, get on the phone together and hash this out. This is not an all-or-nothing gambit. You’re politicians. You know as well as anyone that the legislative process is all about incrementalism and compromises to get to the ultimate goal. You can disagree on your positions. But surely there is common ground on which the two of you can agree that can result in Florida doing things better than they are being done now at Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida.
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Let’s see if we have this right: Mr. Governor, your position is Florida needs to continue to have a toolbox of financial incentives — a panoply of tax breaks and actual taxpayer cash paid to “qualifying” businesses — to help Florida have the type of business climate that will retain and attract companies. We know your position: You’re all about jobs. you want to keep the Florida job machine going. And you’ve been great at it. Likewise, you’ve recognized as a governor that you’re competing against 49 other states whose WALSH
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