According to Commissioner Grover Robinson, the new allocation schedule that was given to Inweekly with the mediation agreement is not part of the agreement. He said the he was told another commissioner attached the schedule cutting PEDC by $275,0000 but he was assured by County Administrator Jack Brown and County Attorney Allison Rogers that PEDC wasn’t part of the mediation.
Assist County Administrator Amy Lovoy confirmed that economic development cuts were not part of the mediation negotiations. The schedule is merely the remaining balances owed various agencies. The BCC will make the funding decisions for them at a later meeting.
Every person, business and property owner in Escambia County is a “county” taxpayer. All of the City of Pensacola and Town of Century are “in” Escambia County. As part of this year’s budget process, the first in recent years to be led by a real fiscal conservative (Chairman Jeff Bergosh), the BCC should also carefully consider which outside groups are funded by the City of Pensacola and the Town of Century to identify problems with “double taxation.” [On the city side, they never ask these groups if they are “also” funded by the county and for how much.] For example, It is fundamentally unfair to make city taxpayers pay both city “and” county taxes to fund the same outside group such as the Gulf Coast African American Chamber of Commerce. Further, when the BCC considers outside agency requests for funding, it should request the agency to provide evidence documenting which other governments also fund that agency. For example, which governments in the “Gulf Coast” stretching from Florida to Texas fund the “Gulf Coast” African-American Chamber of Commerce. Similarly, which groups in “Florida West” (perhaps the same as Northwestern Florida or the Pensacola Bay Area) tax its residents, business owners and property owners to fund the “Florida West” Economic Development Alliance that advertises it supports the “Greater Pensacola” area to include Santa Rosa County. Does Santa Rosa County help fund the Florida West Economic Development Alliance? If not, why not? The same goes for other groups funded by both the city and county such as Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inc. I do understand that such groups do apply great political pressure upon elected officials all but demanding an annual allotment of taxpayer dollars. Often the excuse given by elected officials is that the people who run such groups are “fine people” to mean the type of people they meet at cocktail parties and who support their political campaigns. However, with Bergosh having an opportunity to reshape the budget process, and no one seeming to be puling his chain, it seems time to rationalize which outside agencies get funded and why and also to make them present verifiable evidence that taxpayers received a significant payback. Such a review and far more deliberate funding process may also identify opportunities for the BCC to move certain functions “in-house” both better under governmental control with providing for greater accountability.