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Florida looks for proposals for grants to attract jobs to the state
With a fresh $50 million available for next fiscal year, the state jobs agency has opened the application process for a program that provides infrastructure and workforce incentives to attract businesses to Florida.
The Department of Economic Opportunity on Monday tweeted that it is accepting project proposals for the Job Growth Grant Fund.
“The grants will assist communities in funding workforce training and public infrastructure projects to support growth and employment in Florida,” the department tweeted.
The program was included in a $100 billion budget that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week for the fiscal year that will start July 1.
In all, more than $74 million is available for the program, with lawmakers putting $50 million into the budget and DeSantis also able to tap $24.4 million left unspent from 2019. Last year, DeSantis vetoed $20 million set aside for the fund as he nixed $1 billion from the budget amid uncertainty about economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fund was created in 2017 after a battle between lawmakers and then-Gov. Rick Scott about business incentives. Scott distributed almost all of the $170 million he got for the fund before leaving office in January 2019.
