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UF study must take a hard look at EDC
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 3, 2000 On Tuesday, Hernando County Administrator Paul McIntosh will ask the County Commission to do something it should have done years ago: develop a master plan for managing the county's economic development. McIntosh wants the commission to pay between $46,000 and $76,000 to professors and graduate students at the University of Florida to complete a comprehensive study of what the county has to offer potential businesses, what its goals should be and how to make the organization that handles the chore of economic development more accountable for its work. It's a sound proposal and one the commissioners should support, but only if it includes a component that examines the more fundamental question of whether it is better for the public or private sector, or a combination of both, to administer the plan. The viability of the organization the county pays to oversee economic development, the privately incorporated Economic Development Commission, has been in question almost since its inception in 1996. It has been funded primarily by the public, and the cost has risen considerably, from about $244,000 in 1996 to $331,000 in the current fiscal year. At the same time, the EDC staff has doubled. Questions have arisen repeatedly about the group's failure to meet the expectation that it eventually would rely more on private funds, its penchant for arbitrary secrecy, its lack of accountability and even whether the group has actually accomplished all that it claims. Despite those lingering concerns, a majority of commissioners have continued to approve funding for the EDC without having a clear, widely-agreed-upon vision of what it hoped to accomplish. Only recently, and at the insistence of McIntosh and some new EDC board members, has there been a sincere push for change. That growing momentum, mixed with the fresh and deservedly skeptical perspectives of three new commissioners, are encouraging signs that meaningful reform of the economic development mission is in the offing. The county administrator and his staff are in the process of writing a new contract for the EDC, which is expected to include specific requirements for continued funding, such as setting minimums for creating jobs and adding to the industrial tax base. And for the first time, there will be a job description for the EDC director, who remarkably has worked without one for the past four years. The University of Florida study should help the commissioners decide what the EDC's role should be. For example, should the EDC use the money it receives from the county to assist the expansion of existing businesses? Or should the EDC invest money in improving infrastructure in places that would be attractive to industrial and manufacturing operations? Or should the EDC concentrate on marketing the county to outside interests and facilitating their moves if they eventually commit to locate here? Even when those questions have been answered, a larger one remains: Should the EDC exist at all as a public-private partnership, or should the commission revert to its old practice of funding a county-run department of public employees? One key for the County Commission to become the master of its economic development destiny is to ensure that the university study be conducted independently, not relying solely on data from the EDC, and then only if the information can be verified through other sources. There have been too many questions about the group's veracity to not take that approach. That is why the commission should fully fund the study itself, and not seek partial funding from the EDC, as some have suggested, lest the group feel empowered to influence the results. Finally, the commission must demand that the university study be completed in time to review the findings before budget hearings begin in July, at which time the EDC's annual funding is set. The public already has invested more than $1-million in the EDC during the past four years, and it still is not satisfied with the process or the end product. So, even at $76,000, the cost for this comprehensive study could result in long-term savings if it diverges from the EDC's status quo and provides the county with a foundation from which to build its economic future. With some reservations, we recommend the commission approve the expenditure.
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