Opinion: Time for agency to change

Officials at Enterprise Florida Inc., a public-private partnership created to handle economic development and international trade issues for the state, have a lot of explaining to do. A $2.38-million private account and a string of insufficiently documented decisions and expenses have caught the eye of auditors at the state comptroller's office. It's not the first time EFI has had an accountability problem. It's high time the agency changed procedures that leave it open to charges of self-dealing, secrecy and extravagant living through activities that are supposed to be serving a public purpose.

The most damaging assertion is that EFI's books were set up for officers to "recycle" money, issuing grants to private firms that then return part of that cash for unapproved uses. With understatement, the draft audit's authors cautioned: "This (system) creates a situation where state funding may be used for unauthorized purposes such as to pay lobbyists, provide political club membership fees and EFI salary adjustments." The preliminary audit also found that EFI treated its executives to lavish bonuses and junkets with only the thinnest explanations.

Auditors say grant decisions may have been tainted because EFI and some of the organizations to which it granted money shared board members. Some of the grants showed little or no documentation -- even when returns on investment were questionable.

Enterprise Florida officials have chafed under the rules accompanying stewardship of public money almost from the program's inception. A year after EFI's 1996 creation, EFI President John Anderson appeared before a legislative committee to apologize for failing to keep lawmakers sufficiently informed. He then refused to divulge details about $40-million in venture capital grants. And he wrapped up by asking stunned lawmakers for a secret meeting.

Apparently, that distaste for openness persists. Auditors could find no operational plan for the organization, no documents showing firms had to bid for grants, no records of visits to some grant recipients and no explanation for payments made before projects commenced and after contracts were expired.

Gov. Jeb Bush has been a vigorous promoter of the program as an example of the concept of running government like a business. But the stockholders -- all of Florida citizens -- seem to be getting shut out of stewardship decisions about their money and denied proof of the results. When Bush's predecessor Lawton Chiles created EFI, critics raised questions about how closely the public would be able to monitor its money, and whether it was wise to invest so heavily in relatively unproven organizations. Despite the agency's self-reported successes -- 35,000 new jobs created last year and a $335-million increase in export sales -- and its dismissal of the concerns raised by state auditors, the state's preliminary findings make these questions relevant again.

EFI has 30 days to respond point by point to the draft language, and has cooperated with auditors to craft the language thus far. Rather than going defensive, the group and its private partners should go out of their way to show their decisions and bookkeeping are aboveboard. Surely the auditors' 30 recommendations and EFI's history of shunning the sunshine raise enough red flags to merit a speedy and comprehensive response.

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