DeSantis budget backs Visit Florida, jobs fund

November 18, 2019

Jim Turner

TALLAHASSEE --- Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “bolder” budget proposal for next fiscal year mostly holds the line on tax breaks and embattled programs to promote the state to tourists and businesses.

In rolling out a $91.4 billion spending plan for the 2020-2021 fiscal year on Monday, DeSantis again asked lawmakers to support popular sales tax “holidays” on back-to-school and hurricane-preparation items.

The budget proposal, wrapped under a banner of “A bolder, brighter, better future,” also would maintain $50 million in funding for Visit Florida, keeping the tourism-marketing agency’s doors open, and would lead to a $10 million bump --- to $50 million --- for the Job Growth Grant Fund economic-development program.

“The initiatives we’re doing, I think, are bold, I think are very meaningful,” DeSantis said.

Lawmakers will consider DeSantis’ budget proposal during the 2020 legislative session, which starts Jan. 14. The governor offered similar support for Visit Florida and the jobs fund before the 2019 legislative session.

Visit Florida has been highly controversial, with House leaders expressing doubts about its effectiveness and its need to continue to exist. DeSantis during the 2019 session asked lawmakers to keep the tourism agency alive for another year, but with funding cut from $76 million to $50 million.

At the time, DeSantis said the agency needed to prove itself as he had just taken office in January. Lawmakers agreed to keep alive Visit Florida through the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which ends June 30.

DeSantis made similar comments about his desire to keep the Job Growth Grant Fund in operation.

“What I like about that is that it’s very nimble,” DeSantis said Monday about the fund. “People can apply, and we can kind of cut through bureaucracy and just do it.”

The fund --- derided by critics as a slush fund for the governor --- was created in 2017 after a legislative battle about incentives, including a failed request by then-Gov. Rick Scott in 2016 to provide $250 million in economic-development money that could go directly to businesses.

Money from the job growth fund must go to regional infrastructure projects and workforce-training programs.

During House committee meetings in September, Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Ken Lawson said the administration wanted to boost the spending for the fund as “demand from our communities has exceeded our fund.”

During the fiscal year that ended June 30, the state received more than 90 proposals requesting over $530 million in funding.

Last week, as an example, DeSantis awarded $3.9 million to Orlando Melbourne International Airport for water and sewer improvements needed to expand the facility. Officials said the expansion would help bring about 500 jobs.

“I think that Job Growth Grant Fund has been good,” DeSantis said Monday.

As for the expected fight with the House over Visit Florida, DeSantis acknowledged that remains a “source of some contention.”

“We’ll see how that shakes out,” DeSantis added.

House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, issued a statement after DeSantis released the budget proposal, saying the governor should be “commended for a strict adherence to fiscal restraint.” But Oliva did not specifically address the Visit Florida or Job Growth Grant Fund programs.

As part of DeSantis’ overall budget proposal, DeSantis revived a request from earlier this year to bolster tax relief through a reduction in school property-tax rates.

The issue involves adjusting tax rates because of increased property values. The reduction proposed by DeSantis to the “required local effort” in the Florida Education Finance Program, which is the state’s main school-funding formula, accounts for a projected $247.3 million in savings.

The rest of his proposed tax package features a back-to-school tax “holiday” that would allow shoppers to avoid paying sales taxes for eight days on clothing, school supplies and personal computers, and a 10-day tax holiday that would allow people to avoid paying sales taxes on hurricane-preparation items, including generators.

The two holidays are projected to save shoppers $65 million.

The Senate has started to move bills for the 2020 session that offer a 10-day sales tax holiday on school supplies (SB 542) and an 18-day “disaster preparedness” holiday for items ranging from battery packages and weather-band radios to impact-resistant windows and food storage coolers (SB 524).

Lawmakers during the 2019 session crafted a $121 million tax package that included a five-day back-to-school tax holiday. The package also cut a sales tax on commercial leases from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent, gave shoppers a seven-day holiday from sales taxes on disaster preparation gear, provided measures to assist Northwest Florida farmers who sustained damage in Hurricane Michael, and directed local governments to include charter schools when asking voters to use property tax dollars for public education.