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County keeps status quo for its contracts

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By MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 9, 2012

TAMPA - A measure that would have given local businesses a leg up in bidding on Hillsborough County government contracts failed Wednesday on a tie vote of the county commission.

The local preference ordinance would have given businesses based in Hillsborough and surrounding counties an opportunity to match the winning bid on county contracts if their bids were within 1 to 5 percent of the preferred bid, depending on the size of the contract.

For example, a local vendor would have the ability to match the winning bid if the vendor was within 5 percent on a contract of $100,000 or less. For contracts of $3 million to $5 million, the local company's initial bid would have had to be within 1 percent of the winner.

Commissioner Les Miller introduced the measure despite opposition from local business organizations. Miller said small business owners had complained about their inability to land county contracts.

"They were saying businesses were coming in from other parts of the state and other parts of the country and were knocking them out of the box," Miller said after the vote.

Yet opposition from groups like Tampa Bay Partnership and the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation carried weight with other commissioners, including Democrat Kevin Beckner.

"I think the concept and the intentions are right," Beckner said. "But I always had concerns about the unintended consequences."

The 3-3 tie vote doomed the measure. Beckner joined Republicans Mark Sharpe and Sandy Murman in voting against it. Republicans Ken Hagan and Victor Crist voted with Miller in support of the measure. Commissioner Al Higginbotham was absent because of a death in the family.

Sharpe said he has long opposed local preference legislation because he regards it as an impediment to free markets. He compared such laws to the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised U.S. tariffs on 20,000 imported goods to record levels. Some historians blame the act for increasing the severity and lengthening the duration of the Great Depression.

"I think it's a mistake," Sharpe said. "I think what we want to do if we want to grow the economy is not create more regulations."

It seemed Murman would give Miller the majority he needed to pass the ordinance. She rebutted comments from business organizations that the ordinance's regulations would restrict business growth.

"We are not really restricting," Murman said before the vote. "We are absolutely giving more opportunity to the people who are here, who have been loyal to this community, paying their taxes."

But Murman ended up voting against the measure, saying she didn't want more regulations on small business.

In other matters, officials told commissioners an ordinance passed in September has dramatically reduced staged-accident fraud.

Dennis Russo, of the National Insurance Crime Bureau, said the number of questionable insurance claims in Hillsborough County decreased by 62 percent from 2010 to 2011. At the same time, Miami-Dade County's questionable claims increased by 24 percent.

Russo said the criminal gangs that run the fraudulent clinics had moved from South Florida to the Tampa area. Now, because of the ordinance, the fraud is moving south again, he said.

msalinero@tampatrib.com (813) 259-8303

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