Gov. Rick Scott told business leaders on Thursday, he wants to restore the Department of Commerce under his control, to help coordinate the state’s economic development efforts.
Speaking to the board of members at Enterprise Florida’s annual meeting Scott said, businesses seeking to relocate to now face a labyrinth of agencies and duplicity of effort, which is costing jobs.
Scott envisions a department run by a secretary he appoints, that would take the lead in coordinating agencies such as Enterprise Florida, the Agency for Workforce Development and the Office of Tourism Trade and Economic Development (OTTED).
Scott’s proposal drew praise from the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida, whose members have long felt that the state was losing business to other states because of cumbersome permitting processes and a redundancy of effort between competing agencies.
The Department of Commerce was abolished in 1996 at the behest of then-Governor Lawton Chiles.
The News Service of Florida
