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Lawmakers Pelt Enterprise Florida with Questions About Spending

Lawmakers are turning up the heat on Enterprise Florida, the public-private partnership that doles out taxpayer funded incentives to businesses. Gov. Rick Scott is asking for $300 million in the next state budget for these types of incentives, more than double the current amount.

Tolu Olorunnipa in the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau says lawmakers asked Enterprise Florida a lot of questions Tuesday about how the money is being spent.

“They tried to defend themselves and say that they’ve met all of their expectations and all of their benchmarks in terms of job creation", Olorunnipa said. "They say they’ve created more jobs than they expected. So they say that they have done a good job of watching over the money and being good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars.”

Some lawmakers seemed skeptical. They pointed to the high profile bankruptcy of Digital Domain after the company received $20 million in incentives.

Enterprise Florida is also defending itself against two reports over the last year that questioned the organization’s ethics and spending. The company CEO says the report released last week by the group Integrity Florida was biased and inaccurate.