Members of a mayor’s task force proposed Wednesday that the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission outsource its compliance responsibilities.
The suggestion follows a December audit of the JEDC that found the City lost money when companies did not comply with the requirements of incentives deals.
Task force members said outside agencies, certified public accountants, City auditors, or a combination of reviewers could handle compliance efforts.
Task force member Robert Miller said costs could be passed to the companies receiving economic incentives from the City.
Miller, task force Chairman Bill Scheu and member Grace Sacerdote met Wednesday for what Scheu referred to as a “brainstorming session” to discuss compliance and due diligence efforts and potential solutions.
The idea of outsourcing compliance is one the state uses to monitor its Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund program and has a list of people and agencies certified to do such work, said JEDC Acting Executive Director Paul Crawford,
Crawford said in the full task force’s initial meeting that a drop in JEDC staff from 41 to 17 affected compliance and oversight measures.
In the outsource scenario, the JEDC could create the template of what the contract is, what benchmarks must be achieved and the payout or payback for meeting or not meeting the goals, and provide that to the compliance entity.
Miller also proposed that the task force review a series of JEDC economic development contracts to see how they have changed over time.
The idea of reviewing the most recent 10 contracts was proposed, but Crawford said a better idea might be to look at several contracts from different periods of the past 15 years to see how the language has changed.
“I think it will be interesting to see what’s in there,” Miller said.
Crawford said JAX Chamber representatives and others are discussing public investment policy and requirements.
Scheu said the meeting generated ideas to take to the full task force.
The full task force will meet at 3 p.m. today at City Hall. Representatives of the general counsel who help write economic development contracts are tentatively scheduled to take part in the meeting.
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