Alex Sink’s Business Plan for Florida
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How a Business Leader Will Revitalize Our Economy and Put Floridians Back to Work
A Vision for Florida’s Economy
The times we're in and the challenges we face today are truly unique; there's no modern precedent for what Floridians are going through right now. Because we're grappling with challenges unlike anything we've ever faced, a governor with a politics-as-usual approach is not what Florida needs.
Getting through this recession and coming out stronger and more prosperous on the other side will require a leader with experience in private business whose focus has always been entrepreneurship and problem solving.
Our next governor must be able to meet Florida’s economic challenges with fresh thinking and a common-sense approach. Florida’s next Governor must be a Jobs Ambassador, a Turnaround Expert, a “Fix-It Governor” for all Floridians. In this crippled economy, Florida’s top job requires a unique skill set and a business mindset in the governor's office. With her twenty-six years of experience as a business leader in the private sector, that's exactly what Alex Sink brings to the table.
After working her way up to become president of Florida’s largest bank, Alex managed more than $40 billion in customer deposits while supervising more than 9,000 employees in 800 branches – earning a reputation for credibility, integrity and dedication to her customers. She made sure that the bank reached out to the community and provided thousands of loans to small businesses to help them get off the ground and stay in business.
During her career, Alex helped thousands of Floridians get the resources they needed to start or expand their own businesses, both large and small, and helped everyday Floridians achieve dreams like sending their children to college. While in the private sector, Alex repeatedly gave back to her state and community. Governor Lawton Chiles appointed Alex to the Florida Commission on Government Accountability to the People, charged with finding ways state government could be more responsive to the people of Florida. She worked with the Center for Entrepreneurship, the Junior Achievement of West Central Florida and chaired Leadership Florida. And as someone who invested every day in making Florida and its economy a success, she took a leadership role in the broader business community as vice-chair of Florida TaxWatch and an active board member of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Council of 100 and Enterprise Florida – a public-private partnership that serves as the state’s primary organization devoted to statewide economic development and job creation.
With a business leader behind the Governor’s desk, Florida will have a chief executive who understands how to work with Florida’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and working families to create and save jobs. Alex Sink’s Business Plan for Florida is based on the fundamentals of economic success and accountability that she learned as the leader of Florida’s largest financial institution, as an investor in business and job creation, as a civic leader and entrepreneur. Her plan will help put Floridians back to work quickly, and create a stronger economic foundation for Florida in the long-term.
Alex Sink believes:
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Florida Must be a Land of Opportunity: Alex Sink wants all Floridians to have the opportunity to achieve their dreams, with good paying jobs that allow them to provide for their families. This will take an entrepreneurial approach and a laser-like focus on building the sustainable industries of the future. Alex will think creatively about what unique assets and competitive advantages Florida enjoys that we can use as economic magnets for job growth.
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Florida Should Do Everything Possible to Support our Businesses: Florida should be seen as a great place not just to vacation or retire but also to start and grow a business. Alex will work to maintain Florida’s position as a low tax state for businesses, and create an environment that is consistent and helpful, while removing unnecessary barriers to growth. It’s time for the politicians to take a back seat to some real business know-how. This will require a unique partnership with a Governor who works with business to grow our economy. Alex knows that economic growth doesn’t really come from government – it comes from business. But good government can help the private sector drive growth.
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Florida’s Governor Has to Aggressively Promote our State: The state’s Governor must be Florida’s Marketer-in-Chief, and Alex will serve as our state’s chief jobs ambassador. She speaks the language of business, she knows what business leaders need, and she will demonstrate why they should invest in Florida and bring quality jobs to the state. If Florida is to be more successful at bringing in new businesses and new jobs and supporting the businesses we have here, it will take someone with a lifetime of business skills and experiences in the Governor’s Office.
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Florida’s Governor can bring our State Together to Achieve Success. The different regions in our state have so many assets, but too often are working in competition with one another. This is true on everything from a comprehensive vision for the state’s infrastructure to coordinating Florida’s new energy hubs. Alex will leverage each region’s unique assets, while making sure that they are working together to compete nationally and globally. She also understands the need to focus on rural economic development to support a way of life important to so many Floridians. And given her decades of first-hand experience with many of our state’s public and private economic development groups, she will bring these key stakeholders together to work collaboratively and help realize our state’s common goals.
Alex Sink’s Business Plan for Florida presents a comprehensive vision for Florida’s economic future:
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A vision to REVIVE our economy for the short term to create and save jobs today.
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A vision to REMAKE our economy for the long term to build a stronger tomorrow.
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A vision to REFORM our government, based on Alex Sink’s lifetime of leadership in business, to create a climate of confidence and prosperity now and for future generations.
Revive our Economy for the Short-Term: Creating Jobs Quickly
Alex Sink has the turnaround expertise and business know-how to jumpstart Florida’s economy with a three-pronged strategy for creating and saving jobs in the short-term:
- First, help stabilize and expand small businesses – the major generator of jobs in our state.
- Second, work with Florida’s businesses to keep jobs here and start expanding again.
- Third, revive the economic sectors that can create jobs quickly with targeted marketing of Florida’s assets.
Just as she did in her twenty-six-year business career, Alex will work collaboratively with key stakeholders across Florida – non-profit and for-profit businesses, community leaders, statewide organizations, university research programs, economic and fiscal experts, the Legislature and many others – to fine-tune these initiatives for implementation in the short-term.
Strategy One: Stabilize and Expand Small Business
Alex Sink’s focus on small business is very straightforward: Small businesses create most of the jobs in our state. Small business can respond more quickly in generating new jobs, and they make up more than 90 percent of all businesses in our state.
Alex’s plan for small business starts with access to capital. In 2008, a report on Florida’s economic development policies suggested that the state could become more competitive in the innovation-based economy by expanding, among other things, its early stage venture funding, early stage grant funding, and investments in small innovation-based businesses. There is so much Florida can do to help small businesses survive and grow:
Ensuring Access to Capital. Florida’s small business owners need more ready access to credit to survive and grow. Alex has encouraged our community banks and credit unions to take full advantage of many federal Small Business Administration programs. It also means encouraging innovative programs for better access to venture capital, micro-lending, and ensuring that our businesses have the funds and the technical assistance needed, including coaching on budgeting, money-management, use of financial intermediaries, and other things that larger businesses take for granted.
Creating a Small Business Ombudsman. While small business advisors exist within the state government, Alex will demonstrate her commitment to our small business owners by creating a small business ombudsman specifically in the Office of the Governor to oversee and coordinate issues affecting Florida’s small businesses.
Encouraging Small and Start-Up Businesses. Alex Sink would push to defer state corporate income taxes of qualified startup businesses for the first three years. Qualification criteria would include considerations such as payroll size, annual revenues generated, or having the business and its employees based in Florida. The deferral helps new businesses from a cash flow standpoint. The first three years of a start-up business are critical and profit-margins can be both narrow and uncertain. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, two-thirds of startups survive at least two years, but that number drops to 44% by the fourth year. It is vital that we help such businesses maintain their cash flow and profitability through this period. Deferring taxes -- allowing these businesses to pay their state corporate income tax liability for the first three years over a later period when they're successful -- would provide the equivalent of an extra 5.5% profit margin in those first three years, boosting their chances of survival -- as well as jobs and investment in Florida. A company accepting this option would have to execute a lien with the State, prioritizing the state’s interest in the deferred tax obligation in case of bankruptcy.
Strategy Two: Creating and Keeping Jobs Here
Florida must provide immediate job-creation and retention incentives for all Florida businesses. Alex Sink will promote incentives aimed specifically at job creation by:
Tying tax incentives to job creation. Alex Sink wants to reward efforts to put more Floridians back to work by giving a corporate income tax credit to businesses creating up to 20 new jobs based in Florida during the next three years. The credit would be based on the employer’s share of federal payroll taxes and the increase in the annual payroll for the new employees. Because it is tied to the federal payroll tax, this credit gets bigger the more new jobs a company creates and the more it pays each new worker hired. For instance, if a small business hires three new workers at the average annual wage in Florida of $38,470, its federal payroll tax liability would increase by $2,943 per new employee, or $8,829 total. Under Alex's plan, Florida will credit that business with $8,829 off its state tax liability for the next three years -- a total credit of over $25,000 for creating those three jobs. If the company hires additional workers, additional credits would accrue. And if they pay their employees more, the credit goes up as well. For instance, if those three new workers were paid $50,000 a year, the same company's Florida job-creation tax credit would come to $3,825 per new job per year, or a total of $34,425.
Directing Florida’s Money to Florida’s Businesses. Alex will make sure that Florida businesses start getting more state contracts. As Governor, she will provide a competitive bidding preference for in-state businesses that employ Florida residents. This will put more money into the hands of Florida businesses, which will directly create more jobs for Florida workers.
Streamlining, Expediting, and Cutting the Red Tape. Florida should be doing everything we can to keep jobs here and grow jobs quickly. That means bringing greater speed and certainty to permitting decisions without gutting environmental and public safety protections; accelerating the launch of already-approved economic development projects through the Florida Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development; streamlining regulations and the regulatory process; and creating an easier interface with state government.
Getting Our Taxpayer Dollars Back to Florida. Florida has not had the leadership necessary to compete for our fair share of the tax dollars our citizens send to Washington; consequently, our state ranks 46th in the nation, per capita, in competitive grant receipts. Alex will aggressively work with the Florida Congressional delegation to ensure more of our tax dollars are invested in growing Florida’s economy. She will also use business sense when it comes to providing state matching funds for grants from corporations and federal sources including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. And Alex will move the state grants office from the Department of Environmental Protection to the Office of the Governor, helping to ensure its efforts get high priority.
Strategy Three: Revive Economic Sectors that Can Create Jobs Quickly
Alex Sink will leverage the unique assets and competitive advantages inherent to Florida, turning them into economic magnets for quick job growth by tapping into sectors that can more easily create jobs. These include:
Visitors and Conventions - Florida is known worldwide for its tourism and entertainment resources. As the world economy emerges from the recession, people across the nation and globe will ramp up their vacation travel and businesses will once again travel for conventions. Alex will market Florida as the premier spot to visit and hold conventions.
The New Retirement Sector - Alex will jumpstart housing markets by attracting seniors and future retirees. Florida’s housing prices have fallen more than just about anywhere else in the country, and Alex will increase efforts to market Florida as a retirement destination.
Infrastructure - By investing in Florida’s infrastructure, we create jobs now and develop a needed foundation for a new economy. Florida’s roads, rails, airports, ports, and broadband capacities need to be top-flight, connecting Florida with U.S. and foreign markets so that our current businesses can take better advantage of global opportunities and we can attract more businesses to Florida.
Export/imports - Small- and medium-sized businesses are the major drivers of Florida’s exports, and yet they often cannot get access to the necessary financing for exporting their goods. The Florida Export Finance Corporation (FEFC) is a non-profit corporation created by the state to guarantee loans to businesses that will grow employment through exporting. As Governor, Alex Sink will fight to expand the availability of assistance from the FEFC and business counseling services on exporting that are provided through Enterprise Florida.
Remake our Economy for the Long-Term: Building A Stronger Future
As we revive our economy in the short term, we must also begin building a better, stronger economy for our state’s future. It’s time to remake Florida.
Alex Sink believes that Florida needs to think strategically about the kind of future we want to have. Our state has a long history of building the future it wants. Floridians with this entrepreneurial spirit built railroads the length of the state, created communities from uninhabitable swaths of land, envisioned global vacation destinations that didn’t yet exist, united urban centers separated by water, and extended our reach from the Space Coast to the moon.
In recent decades, however, we have simply let the future happen to us. And the results have created a Florida that is struggling with spiraling unemployment even as the rest of the nation slowly starts to recover from this recession.
A New Vision, A New Direction
We must start with a vision of the kind of sustainable, diverse economy that Florida needs to succeed in the 21st century. That means investing in Florida businesses, particularly the high-growth startups, and supporting the innovative industries of tomorrow.
Florida can invest in key industries that will best use the unique assets and talents of Florida:
- Our medical services. Florida is host to many world-class research institutes including the Scripps Research Institute, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute, the Stanford Research Institute at St. Petersburg, the Max Planck Florida Institute, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, Draper Labs and others. We also have excellent primary care and specialty care facilities. With all these health care resources, combined with our climate and Florida’s natural attraction to, and ability to handle, visitors, we can make health care delivery a major “export” industry. Attracting people from around the world to come here for extended treatments can generate immense amounts of capital inflows to our communities. Investing in telemedicine will further increase our ability to bring our medical expertise to patients not just across our state and nation but around the world.
- Our renewable energy sources. With our unique blend of wind, sunshine, agriculture, ocean currents and other natural resources, Florida can become a national leader in a variety of alternative fuels and renewable energy for tomorrow. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, Florida is at the top of the list in the nation for the amount of land-based biomass available for biofuel production. And there are several other, marine-based alternative energy sources – most still in the formative stages – on which Florida is well positioned, such as algae cultivation and harvesting energy from tidal currents along the North Atlantic current. This clean-energy sector was named in 2008 as a new “high-impact” sector for Florida. But we need the commitment, leadership, and supportive policies necessary to make Florida a global leader in new and renewable energy.
- Homeland Security/Defense. Florida is home to many of the nation’s leading defense companies, with 20 military installations and three unified command centers in the state. Defense spending reaches all 67 counties, with all but a handful of counties receiving at least $3 million annually in defense-related spending.
- Creative Industries and the Arts. Florida can become a home base for movie production, video production and the new media. We already have the headquarters of one of the world’s largest movie companies – Universal Studios – yet we rank 5th in movie production according to the Motion Picture Association of America. California, New York, Illinois and Texas all surpass us. With Florida’s year-round outdoor climate, we should rival any location on earth for on-site production. Other arts can also be a magnet for economic development – such as museums, performances, book fairs, film fests – making Florida a cultural hotspot for the rest of the country.
- Aviation/Aerospace. Florida’s over 400 aerospace companies employ nearly 32,500 workers. Florida’s space coast has one of the highest concentrations of engineers anywhere in the U.S. This industry has developed a mature cluster-based approach that incorporates a wide range of aviation-related activities: aircraft manufacturing, maintenance, and refurbishing; advanced aerospace technologies; and materials research. As the space program changes, Florida should aggressively pursue new opportunities and partnerships in the industry to leverage its workforce capacity and diversity in this sector.
- Emerging Technologies. This cluster is made up of new bio-, nano-, and micro-technology companies as well as established disciplines of IT, engineering and physics. Florida’s universities within the sector are receiving record numbers of invention disclosure and licensing agreements. Florida is a leading state in the number of patents granted.
- Life Sciences. The state has more than 38,000 companies employing more than 671,000 workers in four general life science areas (biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing, health care). Florida is the 10th largest biotechnology state, but we can do more to move up that list.
- Information Technology. There are approximately 20,000 IT companies with nearly 250,000 workers in the state. Florida is ranked 4th in the nation for high-tech employment and 3rd in the nation in volume of IT exports. Total IT payroll is $15 billion annually, with an average annual wage of $62,210.
- Financial/Professional Services. Florida’s 117,000-plus financial and professional services companies employ nearly 892,000 workers in the state. This sector has enormous potential – in 2004, research suggested that, with the right approach, Florida could attract a global financial services headquarters, increase industry employment by 50 percent, and establish itself as the international leader in financial services infrastructure and support facilities within the next decade. For example, the state has already expanded beyond Latin America to begin attracting Spanish banks, which have now invested in Florida.
- Manufacturing. Though growth in other sectors has outpaced our state’s manufacturing industries, it remains an essential part of Florida’s economy and a major contributor of high-wage jobs. Nearly 400,000 employees earn an average yearly wage of $43,000 working for 16,500 manufacturers.
- Water and Marine Resources. Our water resources must continue to be one of our great attractions for businesses and families to locate here and for visitors to continue to come and spend their money here. Alex will support our boating, fishing and yachting interests as well as our growing marine industry. Florida has the potential for more port activity than any state in the country. With the expansion of the Panama Canal to handle larger ships, Alex will work to seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of a greater share of East Coast global marine trade.
- Agricultural. Florida is one of the leading agricultural producers in the nation. Besides maintaining our agricultural dominance, Alex will expand this industry into new value-added activities helping to generate more high-wage jobs – most notably in the development of renewable energy and continued emphasis on agricultural research.
Florida can encourage these industries and build the needed economic foundation for the future through a number of tools:
- More Research & Development and commercialization of new products in Florida. We want to be the place where breakthroughs happen. We can expand R&D activities through tax credits for new R&D in-state investment. Thirty-seven states already have such incentives; Florida should join them. For example, New York offers businesses investing in R&D a 9 percent corporate tax credit. A typical high-tech company such as a computer manufacturer might spend 7% of revenues on R&D. For a small tech company with $1,000,000 in revenue and $200,000 in net income, that translates into spending $70,000 on research -- and if it did so in Florida, it would receive $6,300 back on its taxes. That would represent more than a 50% reduction of its total corporate income tax obligation.
- Leverage up to $2 billion for high-tech investment. A 2008 law authorizes the State Board of Administration to invest a maximum of 1.5 percent of the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund’s assets in the state’s high tech and targeted industry sectors. Since the Florida Retirement System has about $130 billion in assets, this gives the SBA nearly $2 billion for investments in areas such as life sciences, clean energy, and aerospace/aviation. Our competitors – states like New York and Washington – have used similar programs with positive results. As Governor, Alex will carefully monitor this investment of these funds to ensure that Florida is obtaining both the best investment return and producing business development results with it in Florida. If the effort proves successful, with strict accountability measures, she will work to expand this law to authorize the State Board of Administration to invest a maximum of 3 percent of the FRS Trust Funds, providing access to yet another $2 billion for investments in Florida’s growth and high tech industries.
- Creating Energy Finance Districts. Since 2008, at least 14 states, including California, Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Texas and Virginia, have passed legislation allowing local governments to create Energy Finance Districts. The EFDs provide residential, commercial and industrial loans to retrofit properties with energy-efficient systems. While Florida already has the existing statutory framework needed for the creation of special districts for community infrastructure improvements, there may be the need to implement additional legislation to fit the EFD models found in some other states. Loans are repaid from riders on the owner’s property tax bill. Eligible projects include tankless water heaters, low-flow toilets, energy efficient windows and wall/roof insulation. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, if the demand and work are spread over 10 years, Florida could see more than 22,000 jobs created and sustained during that period.
- Boosting Partnerships Between Our University Faculty and Private Industry to Increase Entrepreneurial Ventures and Commercialize Research Results. As Governor, Alex will work with the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research and others to leverage the R&D at our colleges and universities. She will prioritize increasing the number of technology partnerships with Florida-based businesses, both large and small. Boosting the transfer of this knowledge to commercial production will help keep highly qualified research scientists and educators at Florida universities and bring more high-tech jobs with higher wages to Florida.
- Building the Best-Educated, Best-Trained Workforce in the Country Through a More Effective Investment in Our Education System. Alex will prioritize investment in our young people and our future by demanding accountability and results. She will also ensure that Florida is focused on education and training from cradle to career – and make sure that workforce preparation is better integrated into the middle- and high-school curricula as well as at the community college level. We need to expand partnerships and develop new ones with community colleges and universities to provide employer-specific, customized training of students. This will help provide a job-ready workforce that can attract new businesses to Florida.
Reform our Government: Creating a Climate of Confidence and Prosperity
- job creation and employment expansion
- fiscal accountability
- educational achievement
- improvements in health and safety
