With the new Florida fiscal year starting July 1, Governor Rick Scott signs new legislation that can be described as a “compromise to achieve a win-win” for him and House Speaker Richard Corcoran.
The “compromise-win” for Scott is that the new legislation includes $85 million for the new Florida Job Growth Grant Fund that includes funding for job training and infrastructure, which has been a huge priority of Scott’s for his second term. The $85 million will be put into the Department of Economic Opportunity’s budget.
Also, the new legislation gives Visit Florida (the agency tasked with bringing tourism money to Florida) $76 million.
“With this legislation, we can promote public infrastructure projects and job training projects to continue to grow jobs for families in every community of our state,” Scott said. “We know that for Florida to be competitive in domestic and international markets, we need as many tools as possible to attract growing businesses to our state. The $85 million Florida Job Growth Grant Fund is what Florida needs to bring major jobs wins home.”
Both pots of money are huge wins for the second term governor after Corcoran was openly critical of both Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida for lack of transparency for both agencies among other things.
“Just giving cash incentives to relocate a business is very ephemeral.We can absolutely recognize that there are going to be major corporations interested in relocation but they need local workers with specific job skills or infrastructure to address their physical demands whether that be water, sewer, or transportation. But in all of those cases, those are assets that will stay with Florida,” said Republican Rep. Matt Caldwell, from Lehigh.
The “compromise-win” for Speaker Corcoran? Scott also signed the bill funding the state’s educational efforts which boosts per-student funding by $100. After the regular session, Scott vetoed the original bill, which increased funding by $24 per student.
And for Senate President Joe Negron, the “compromise-win” is $50 million toward speeding up repairs on the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee as well as another priority of Negron’s which was $60 million in funding for our state universities