Florida lawmakers challenge governor's economic incentives
Florida lawmakers are pressing Gov. Rick Scott's job-creation team to cough up more details about the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-incentives it awards to companies every year.
Enterprise Florida says the state has signed 316 incentive deals since the governor took office, but only 18 of those are posted on its Website. The rest were exempt from public disclosure. DEO says it will have all incentive deals from 1995 through the present online by March.
Outside the House committee, Rep. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, cornered Swoope for details about how much tax-incentive money and how many jobs were created on Scott's watch.
Swoope said while much of the individual performance data remained confidential, the governor's team had confirmed it had generated a total of about 11,000 jobs for some $35 million in investment so far.
Fasano seemed unconvinced. "They're taking credit for jobs they didn't create," Fasano said afterward.
