by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
Another high-level City leader has voiced concern about Jacksonville’s financial status when it comes to low taxes.
“I think we’re running the City on the cheap,” said Adam Hollingsworth, chief of staff to Mayor John Peyton.
Hollingsworth was speaking to a Jacksonville Community Council Inc. study group Wednesday, just days after Peyton called Jacksonville the “Walmart of cities.”
Peyton made his statement as he presented the City’s budget challenges, comparative taxes and potential growth at the “Jacksonville: Choosing a Future” forum Friday at the University of North Florida.
Peyton, whose second and last term as mayor ends in June, has been talking for years about the City’s budget deficits and revenue needs.
Hollingsworth was focused on job creation as part of JCCI’s “Recession Recovery and Beyond” study, which seeks to determine how the seven-county region can create durable jobs to withstand economic downturns.
Hollingsworth, who recently returned to Jacksonville after a stint on Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team, said he was worried about Northeast Florida’s economic development focus.
“I don’t think we’re focused on wealth creation. We’re focused on job creation,” said Hollingsworth.
There’s a big difference, he said.
Hollingsworth said the City’s focus on creating jobs in the $40,000 range isn’t creating wealth. A recent Jacksonville Economic Development Commission project summary shows that the county average wage is $42,880. The commission staff judges projects on several objectives, including whether their average wage is higher.
While that wage level might allow a family to pay bills and put food on the table, it doesn’t generate enough money to donate to philanthropy or invest, such as in a small business, he said.
“I’m worried about our ability to create wealth in the community,” he said.
The wages also don’t necessarily help the City, he said.
“We breed an electorate that can’t afford to invest in the community,” he said.
Hollingsworth advocated that the area recruit “corporate headquarters to town to change the wage scale.” He said existing and new headquarters house the high-level and highest-paid decisionmakers.
Hollingsworth joined SunTrust Senior Vice President Peter Kantor on the panel to discuss “Business climate: Planting, growing and cultivating businesses in Northeast Florida.”
Kantor outlined changes in the banking industry and how small-business lending has fared in the recent downturn.
He summarized that community banks were “fractured” by the economic and financial turmoil, that national banks aren’t the primary lenders to small businesses, that finance companies aren’t the sources they had been and that entrepreneurs had fewer personal resources to tap.
“Much has dried up,” he said. “We’re left with far fewer traditional lenders and less capital.”
However, he said SunTrust has been seeing an increase in loan demand. “Optimism is growing in the clients we deal with,” he said.
Kantor also said that the Small Business Administration 7(a) Loan Program was one of the solutions for small business lending.
Regarding job and business creation, Hollingsworth also shared advice and insights into the Scott administration’s economic development focus.
Hollingsworth repeated Scott’s campaign pledge of creating 700,000 jobs in seven years using seven steps of action.
He also repeated Scott’s “axiom of unemployment” of regulation, taxation and litigation.
“If he can change the landscape,” said Hollingsworth, “we can make Florida a more attractive state.”
Regarding regulations, Hol-lingsworth said Scott was not concerned about specific regulations as much as “the lack of process in decisionmaking.” He said businesses can take “no” for an answer, but they need an answer.
“The enemy is process,” he said.
Regarding taxation, Hol-lingsworth said Scott intends to phase out the state’s corporate income tax. Scott’s budget presentation Monday “will begin the elimination of that income tax.”
More money in corporate coffers provides more money to invest in job creation, he said.
“You will see the governor be very aggressive in cutting the income tax and eliminate it,” said Hollingsworth. “It’s going to give him a new calling card to recruit business.”
Regarding litigation, Hol-lingsworth said Scott wants tort reform because companies sometimes settle lawsuits instead of defending them “because it’s cheaper.”
“As he attacks these three elements, he wants to get the structure right,” Hollingsworth said, meaning the state’s economic development efforts.
He said Scott was going to appoint one person to run both the state’s economic development efforts and the public-private Enterprise Florida.
Hollingsworth also quizzed the group about the state’s targeted jobs, outlining a comprehensive list that he concluded is “anybody that employs a person.”
Scott intends to reward businesses for creating jobs and not use incentives just for a targeted group.
“Let the marketplace decide,” said Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth also brought up the $800 million he said is needed to dredge the St. Johns River for port expansion and the transportation improvements needed to transport containers out of town.
Asked how to fund that, Hollingsworth said there were only two options. He said the federal government would need to make “an aggressive commitment” or a private source would need to finance it and figure out how to recoup the investment.
Hollingsworth said that newly hired Jacksonville Port Authority CEO Paul Anderson, a former Federal Maritime Commissioner, “will be invaluable” in charting that course.
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