Christine Jordan Sexton
Senate budget Chief Tom Lee said on Monday the House is “doing the bidding” of Gov. Rick Scott in pushing to increase funds to Enterprise Florida.
The remarks followed Sen. Jack Latvala‘s abrupt move to adjourn the Tourism and Economic Development budget conferee meeting early Monday morning just minutes into the meeting and as the House started to discuss a budget offer that would have increased funding at the agency charged with economic development.
Lee said the offer was at odds with an agreed to decision to have a cash-flow approach to funding Enterprise Florida. Lee said it “has been part of the lexicon as far back as I can remember” and that the concerns raised by Enterprise Florida at this late hour are not the way to resolve the budget and move forward.
Lee said that the cash flow approach would prevent Enterprise Florida from “hoarding money over there that it can’t spend.”
The House’s move to increase funding came after a phone call from President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson to his board of directors telling them that the agency could not function with that level of funding because it would not be able to provide incentives for businesses to relocate here.
Scott requested $85 million for Enterprise Florida in his proposed budget for 2015-16 but the House and Senate proposed $25 million and $30 million, with $5 million for marketing, respectively. The paltry level of funding would not enable Florida to provide sufficient levels of funding to help lure companies to relocate here. The agency might as well stop its operations, Johnson suggested.
Scott’s budget was built with $2 billion in Medicaid supplemental dollars called Low Income Pool that have not come to fruition. The federal government has given tentative approval to a $1 billion program which has put the governor’s priorities this legislative session in jeopardy.
Lee said “doing somebody’s bidding not a bad thing” and that it just means the House is “ideologically aligned” with the governor’s office on the issue. However, he expressed concern that the EFI funding became an issue “all of a sudden.”
