Shoveling Your Money Into Their Pockets?
(Enterprise Florida Rebranding Courtesy of The Highest Bidder In...Tennessee)
What with all of Rick Scott's promises of job creation and a booming Florida economy since he first ran, you would think after three plus years under Gov. Wonderful's rule, our unemployment rate would be rock bottom and our economy would be better than leading only two other states, Wyoming and Alaska. Hardly the rainbows and unicorns we were promised.
He certainly wants us to believe he's laser focused on jobs, because no matter what question he's asked, and no matter what the issue, be it health care, or legalizing discrimination in Arizona, his answer is always the same: I'm focused on bringing jobs to our state.
He also would have us believe that all his taxpayer funded vacations travels to Spain, the UK, Brazil, Israel, Colombia, Canada, Chile and Paris, or what he calls "trade missions" are really paying off. The only problem is that, for most of those trade missions, we hear a lot about the missions, but not so much the "trade." Have we gotten an abundance of jobs in return for our pricey trade mission investments? Hardly.
Well, it turns out we haven't even heard the half of it.
According to an investigation by CBS 12 in West Palm Beach, Scott's public-private job and business recruiting arm, Enterprise Florida, is also spending a bundle of taxpayer cash on all those jobs we don't have. That's not all. Spoiler Alert: Thousands and thousands of those dollars are keeping members of Enterprise Florida in the lap of luxury in the name of "recruiting" all over the country. Mostly in high-priced hotels and luxury sky boxes at sporting events:
CBS 12 News spent hours reviewing 20 months worth of spending at Enterprise Florida and uncovered thousands of dollars spent on sky boxes, steakhouses and at fancy hotels.
Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on credit cards. We weren't provided the detail on what was purchased.
Our investigation found leaders at Enterprise Florida, the state's public-private economic development machine, spent more than $21,000 at Yankee Stadium in New York.
They also paid a visit to Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX where they dropped more than $7,100. The stadium tour also stopped off in Atlanta, GA for a cost of $4,400.
Dan Krasner is a government watchdog with the non-partisan group, Integrity Florida. "It's hard to understand why they have to chase these companies around to luxury suites at Yankee Stadium to convince them to take more of our money as subsidies," Krasner said.
Enterprise Florida is tasked with handing out tax dollars to recruit multi-national and global corporations to our area.
And what are Floridans getting in return? Not much:
A CBS 12 News investigation last November found hundreds of millions of dollars spent by Enterprise Florida since its inception created less than half of the 200,000 jobs initially promised.
That's not all. Many of those who sit on the Enterprise Florida board of directors work for private companies that are also getting "incentives." And, as I've written before, many of those who sit on the board who work for the state receive a hefty salary along with some eye-popping bonuses. Among the board members are Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Atwater.
Nice job if you can get it, but even though Enterprise Florida's spending all that money of yours, you can't. You're welcome!
As a matter of fact, sometimes all that money goes into jobs for states other than Florida, like the time Enterprise Florida outsourced the branding of Enterprise Florida to a company in Tennessee. So if you, as a Florida resident, happened to be in the organizational branding business but were out of work at the time, well, you picked the wrong state for the job.
CBS 12 also reported that this "public-private" partnership is much more public than private. Private corporations which, of course, receives huge amounts of your tax dollars in return for the promise of jobs as it is. As we've seen in the past, much of those jobs never make it beyond the "promised" stage, but Floridans still foot the bill.
Worse, as the report stated, some members of the legislature were totally in the dark about all this spending in the first place, as State Senator Eleanor Sobel was, who said: "This is the first time I’m hearing about a list and if it’s true, it’s just shameful." So much for governing in the sunshine.
Here's just a sampling of what the report found in terms of where some of that taxpayer money is going, and how much:
- More than $500,000 charged on Enterprise Florida's American Express Card
- More than $21,000 spent at Yankee Stadium in New York City
- More than $7,000 spent at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas
- More than $7,000 spent at fancy restaurants
- More than $4,000 spent at Turner Field in Atlanta, Georgia
- More than $4,000 spent on limousine services
Here's a more comprehensive list, just from 2012-2013 alone.
The folks at CBS 12 tracked down Rick Scott for a response to their investigation, and you'll never guess his answer:
"Look, any time there's any government money, you want to spend it well, so with Enterprise Florida's job is to you know, recruit companies and expand here to move here. Gray Swoope and his team are doing a good job," Governor Scott said.
If what Swoope is doing is considered a great job (besides the "spending well" part of it), then he and the rest have no business working for Enterprise Florida in the first place, and there are certainly a lot of people in Florida much better qualified who could use the job.
