Did Dep’t of Economic Opportunity ‘punt’ on sports incentives? Debate continues to heat up on eve of legislative review

Associated Industries of Florida is weighing in on the sports incentives the Joint Legislative Budget Commission is slated to discuss tomorrow.

Tom Feeney, president and chief executive officer of business lobby AIF, sent a letter to the 14 members of the LBC asking that they consider the “impact, great number of jobs and rich history Daytona International Speedway brings to Florida.”

The letter follows heated testimony in the Senate Transportation Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning when committee chairman and Republican state Sen. Jack Latvala grilled Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Jesse Panuccio for how his agency handled  four applications from sports franchises vying for $7 million in economic incentives.

Latvala sponsored the sports facility incentive bill and said the department’s handling of the situation is having “an adverse effect on the implemtation of (his) bill.”

Combined, the franchises requested $9 million in applications. The applications were submitted by Daytona International Speedway, the City of Orlando (Orlando City Soccer), the City of Jacksonville (Jacksonville Jaguars) and South Florida Stadium, LLC (Miami Dolphins).

DEO reviewed the applications for completeness but did not rank the applications based on return on investment.  Instead, it determined the applications met the requirements in the law and forwarded all four to the Legislature for further consideration.

“I think you punted on this and I think you’re creating potentially a lot of problems for the House and Senate as we go into the session,” Latvala said. “We’ve got a situation where we got sports teams that are spending money or sports teams that want to come to Florida and we’ve created an untenable situation here because you punted on this.”

Panuccio said his department gave a good-faith interpretation to the statute and that it tried to follow the statute.

House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner asked Amy Baker to rank the grant applications. Baker’s ranking placed the City of Orlando and the City of Jacksonville at the top of the list followed by South Florida Stadium and the Daytona International Speedway.

Following the ranking, the Speedway sent a letter to Baker asking that she reconsider her calculations. See related story

Meanwhile, Crisafulli on Wednesday stepped up his criticism of the DEO’s handling of the project. See related story