Florida Senator Don Gaetz presses on job-creation program
Oct 25, 2011
The following article was published in The Florida Current on October 25, 2011:
Senator Gaetz presses on job-creation program
Senate President-designate Don Gaetz is pushing for more information about companies that owe taxpayers money for incentive-program jobs that never were created and about any state-awarded tax breaks for job creation without strings attached to recoup the money, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Gaetz’s, R-Niceville, sent a letter Tuesday to Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Doug Darling seeking the release of the information, a move that, “comes on the heels of the agency’s admission last week that more than 300 incentive deals inked by the state over the last 16 years had fallen short on their promise. Those companies have been paid $145 million so far, but produced only about half the 65,000 jobs originally promised and a tiny fraction of the private-sector capital investment.”
A list was released Friday of 1,521 incentive-deals dating back to 1995 that were projected to generate a total of 224,286 new jobs over the past 16 years. DEO officials can confirm that only about one-third of those jobs were created, but say some of the contracts are still considered pending and that the jobs could still be created.
Find this article here: http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=25128400