Downtown CRA slated to expire

The Sarasota County Commission cast doubt on the future of the downtown Community Redevelopment Area at an Aug. 20 meeting. In the process, it cast aspersions on the way the CRA has been managed.

Commissioners balked at the amount of money that went into the administration of the CRA and its number of staffers. Last year, $1 million total was spent on administration of the downtown and Newtown CRAs, which have five employees each.

“That’s money that’s being spent that’s not being spent on capital projects,” Commission Chairman Charles Hines said.

The downtown CRA, founded in 1986, takes property tax revenue from the heart of the city and reinvests it in public and public/private projects, such as the Whole Foods complex. That CRA has a sunset date of 2016. Some money from that CRA — exclusively city dollars — is also fed into the Newtown CRA, established in 2007.

Since its inception, the portion of CRA expenditures devoted to administration costs has fluctuated. Over the first five years of the downtown CRA, from 1988 through 1992, 5% — or $540,132 — of the program’s expenditures went toward administration. That number rose to 11% between 1993-97, and after a decrease rose again to 11% from 2008-12.

From 1993-97, that percentage meant spending $1.7 million on staffing and other administrative costs. Over 2008-12, it meant spending $3.3 million.

The percentage of money spent on actual infrastructure and other redevelopment services has seen a slight decrease over the lifetime of the CRA. Over the first five years of the program’s existence, 95% of expenditures was dedicated to bricks and mortar. The percentage has consistently trended downward since then; from 2008-12 that number was 84%, or $25.9 million.

By taking no action at the Aug. 20 workshop, the commissioners are set to let the CRA sunset in 2016. Joe Barbetta, the board’s strongest advocate for continuing the CRA, argued the program was a useful tool, but said that it had been mismanaged in the past.

“There have been some ills from the past on how some of the moneys have been used,” Barbetta said. “I didn’t realize there were 10 employees — I don’t know why. I don’t want to create a bureaucracy; I want the money to go back into capital projects.”

CRA Expenditures
Click here to view a graph of CRA expenditures.