Sarasota votes on $1M economic development budget

SARASOTA — An annual budget of nearly $1 million for the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County is scheduled to come before the Sarasota County Commission Sept. 24.

The commission, according to a memo from Sarasota County Director of Business and Economic Development Jeff Maultsby, will consider a budget of $987,000 to implement the EDC's strategic plan for fiscal year 2014. Commissioners, in a vote earlier in September, approved the EDC's 2013 annual report and fiscal year 2014 business plan and budget.

The upcoming vote, moreover, is the county's fifth agreement with the EDC going back to the Sarasota County Five-Year Economic Development Strategic Plan from April 2009, which covered fiscal years 2010 through 2014, according to Maultsby's memo. The EDC, the memo states, is required to provide a cash match of at least 90% of $383,664. That's the $1 per capita contribution provided by Sarasota County and local municipalities for economic development.