Advertisement

Bowen: Conflicting times for economic recruiting in Pasco

 
Published Feb. 1, 2017

These must be conflicting times to be in the industrial recruitment business.

Pasco County, jilted at the altar by T. Rowe Price in 2014 after a five-year engagement, is enjoying a string of rebound romances. Collectively, Mettler Toledo, TRU Simulation + Training and Raymond James Financial have announced a relocation, an expansion and a land purchase that could produce as many as 1,350 jobs in Pasco over the next several years.

Meanwhile, Alabama-based Venture 54 said it would build a Class A office building on speculation, and the county's office of economic growth revealed in early January that it has another project in the pipeline dubbed Big Mac.

All but the Raymond James Financial land purchase in Wiregrass Ranch have something significant in common. All required incentive packages financed by the Penny for Pasco sales tax. (Raymond James' $10 million state and local incentive deal preceded Penny for Pasco.)

Big Mac even gets a bite. It is projected to require a $2.85 million allocation over the next five years. No other details have been released about that project. Combined, the projects' incentives account for nearly $13.7 million in Penny for Pasco spending.

So, is it safe to say people find you more attractive when you've got money to spend?

"We are much more aggressive, and I'm so glad that we have our Penny money because we were able to pursue and invest,'' Richard Gehring, Pasco's strategic policy administrator, told county commissioners last week.

The second round of the voter-approved Penny for Pasco is projected to raise $56 million for economic development through 2024. The availability of the money is imperative, said Bill Cronin, president and CEO of the Pasco Economic Development Council.

"On the Mettler project,'' Cronin told commissioners, "the Penny saved that project'' because Pasco made up a shortfall after the state overextended its commitments on road-building aid.

"It was the county that stood up and said, 'Okay, we know this is a need. We'll jump in and make that difference,' '' he said.

But, therein lies the conflict. Expect more jumping in from the locals and less from the state. A lot less.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, considers those job-recruitment incentives to be corporate welfare and putting government in the business of picking winners and losers in the private sector. His position, at odds with Gov. Rick Scott, is echoed by Mike Fasano, former state senator and current Pasco tax collector, who routinely tweets kudos to Corcoran for his stand.

Fasano acknowledges he didn't always feel that way. In 2009, for instance, he lamented that an environmental appeal could derail the T. Rowe Price deal and "the unprecedented collaboration between the state and local government to provide financial incentives to inject our local economy with a needed boost.''

He said his opinion changed in Tallahassee as the Legislature received reports of few returns in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of publicly financed incentives.

"Let them spend the stockholders' money, not the taxpayers', '' he said last week.

He didn't criticize Pasco's recruitment efforts, however, saying voters would be able to pass their own judgment at election time.

There is an irony in all of this that is hard to ignore.

On Jan. 14, Mettler Toledo held a groundbreaking ceremony for its $30 million, 250,000-square-foot plant in Lutz, where it will manufacture food-safety equipment and plans to employ 500 people. Next week, TRU Simulation + Training plans a ribbon cutting for its $30 million expanded pilot training center that is expected to add 100 jobs.

Both facilities are in the Northpointe Village complex at the southeast corner of State Road 54 and the Suncoast Parkway. That puts them in House District 37.

Their state representative is Richard Corcoran.

Conflicting times, indeed.

Regardless, if you're an economic recruiter, Pasco would appear to be well positioned, even with the uncertain fate of Enterprise Florida, the state's job-recruiting agency.

"I'm really big on this, and I want to make sure everyone knows this, and our companies as well,'' Cronin said, "the fact that we developed our own capacity here by using tools like the Penny puts us in the position where we don't have to depend on those state incentives all the time.''

Good thing because it's a dependency Corcoran would like to cure.