Christine Jordan Sexton
A high-stakes multimillion dollar tug-of-war over funding for professional sports is now in overtime.
A 14-member joint legislative budget panel on Thursday voted to delay a decision on whether to approve the ranking of four applications for state subsidies.
Joint Legislative Budget Commission Chairman Rep. Richard Corcoran said he was opposed to awarding any incentive money, but out of “respect” for the process he would allow the entire Legislature to make the decision this session.
“I think that would be my preference that 160 people make a decision of that magnitude, not 14, and I think that’s where we’re headed and I think that’s a good thing,” Corcoran said.
He also said that the money could be better spent in other areas and that the franchises didn’t need it.
“This is a reversed, perverse Robin Hood. We’re going to take from the hardworking taxpayers and give it to the rich people.”
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who showed up to support a funding request to help pay for a new soccer stadium, considered the decision a victory because the panel didn’t reject the request. “I’m comfortable that we’ll come to the right place by the end of session,” Dyer said.
In order for a proposal to be passed by the 14-member LBC, a majority of House members and Senate members must support the proposal. Four of the seven House members on the LBC — including Corcoran — opposed the legislation last year that established the process for the sports franchises to compete for the sports incentives.
The process called for the Department of Economic Opportunity to review the applications and rank the proposals based upon, among other things, return on investment.
Four sports franchises submitted applications for the tax incentives: Daytona International Speedway, the cities of Jacksonville (Jacksonville Jaguars) and Orlando (Orlando City), and South Florida Stadium, LLC (the Miami Dolphins). Combined, the applications totaled $9 million in requests. However, only $7 million was available.
Instead of ranking the applications, the DEO reviewed them for completeness and forwarded them all to the Legislature for its approval. Legislative leadership requested that Amy Baker, director of the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, score the applications. Baker did just that and ranked Orlando and Jacksonville at the top of the list followed by South Florida and Daytona International Speedway. Daytona questioned its ranking in a letter to Baker.
In a prepared statement, Speedway President Joie Chitwood III said, “We look forward to working with the Florida Legislature as they review and discuss the sports incentive applications before them.”
South Florida Stadium LLC lobbyist Ron Book said after the meeting that he expected the DEO to score and evaluate the applications. Moreover, Book said he wasn’t sure that Baker had all the pertinent information when she started her scoring process given Baker didn’t award points to either his client or the Daytona International Speedway for permanent job creation. Like Daytona, Book said, his client sent a letter to Baker questioning how the application was scored.
“I’m not sure when EDR got their opportunity to look at it, that they had everything in front of them that had been sent to the department,” Book said.
Ultimately, Book said he believed all the applications were worthy. “I believe all four projects are worthy of full funding and I hope that’s what comes out of the next steps of what we do.”
