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A statewide group of political and business leaders assigned to find ways for Florida to save billons of dollars, headed by a Sarasota entrepreneur, is looking hard at highways.
But that look, even with the prospective savings, might also bring about a not-so-surprising problem when government tries to cut spending: turf wars.
The group, the Florida Government Efficiency Task Force, says the state could save $22 million a year if it consolidated toll collections, according to a report from the News Service of Florida. One chunk of savings could come from making the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority, in the Florida Panhandle, part of the Florida Turnpike Enterprise. That move would save up to
$500,000 a year, says the task force, and maybe $10 million a year on bonds because the FTE's credit rating is better, the News Service reports.
Savings like that, when services shouldn't suffer, is one of the task force's objectives. But while it approved a recommendation to fold the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority into the FTE at a Nov. 16 meeting, it didn't call for that kind of change statewide. The task force will, however, request the state independently study potential savings if the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority were consolidated into the FTE, according to the News Service.
Enter the looming turf war: The News Service reports Bob Rohrlack, president and CEO of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, says giving the state greater control over tolling systems could be less efficient, not more. Says Rohrlack: “We're about to endorse something to create bigger government.”
But task force Chairman Abe Uccello, a Sarasota-area Realtor and businessman, says folding the toll collection systems together makes sense. “This is not just an example of duplication,” Uccello says in the News Service report, “but of a business model that seems wrong.”
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