County considers stronger incentive grant guidelines

Sarasota County is tightening the legal leash for its economic development incentive grant guidelines to keep businesses responsible for upholding agreements.

County staff working to develop new language for the economic incentive grant guildlines.

The commissioners adopted the original guidelines for incentive grant policy in June 2010. According to the staff memo, as the grant program evolved, it became clear to the county that the board needed new guidelines to refer to when considering the business grants.

The new language specifies the responsibilities of the business and the due diligence of the county. If a business asks for an incentive in full rather than the usual pay-for-performance based payment, the principal applicant will have to sign a personal guarantee that makes them “personally liable” for the repayment of the grant amount. They would also have to provide their most recent personal and business tax returns of three consecutive years as a support of the guarantee.

Should county staff find the tax returns undermine the applicant’s credibility, then staff would recommend denial of giving the business the grant in full at one time.

The amendments to the grant process comes four months after the county responded to a counterlawsuit by Sanborn Studios, which received two incentive loans totaling $650,000 to create a film production business in Sarasota County in 2010.

When the business closed, the county claimed Sanborn had failed to pay back the loan as per the agreement and filed a lawsuit against it. However, Sanborn Studios stated in August 2014, after filing a countersuit, that county staff had told Sanborn that it had met its obligations at a meeting in 2013.

Following the amendments to the guidelines' language on todays agenda, commissioners also voted to approve a financial incentive grant of up to $30,000 for US Nano, formerly code-named Project Wire.

The company, a nanomaterials company that transfers new technology from the lab to the market, already has a building in North Sarasota. It leased the building in 2014 with plans to renovate and move the business from its original location in Indiana. The grant will be disbursed as pay-for-performance. US Nano must create 10 new full-time jobs in the next 3 years at the Sarasota-based facility, pay the employees a starting wage of at least $32,008, and make sure the average starting wage for new employees in the business during the job-creation period is at least $43,304.

Correction: The original article stated the amended guidelines were approved at Tuesday's meeting. County staff pulled the item from the consent agenda for further work and tabled approval until the Feb. 10 meeting,