Flori­da's decade-old in­cen­tive pro­gram to lure re­search in­sti­tu­tions is go­ing bel­ly up

A decade ago Flori­da Gov­er­nor Jeb Bush played a lead­ing role in dol­ing out in­cen­tives to at­tract some of the world’s top-ranked re­search in­sti­tu­tions to the state. But over­all the ini­tia­tive has fall­en woe­ful­ly short on the promise of new biotech jobs cre­at­ed, and a new gen­er­a­tion of state lead­ers is cut­ting off the cash.

The lat­est to be af­fect­ed by the back­lash: The Tor­rey Pines In­sti­tute for Mol­e­c­u­lar Stud­ies. The state De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Op­por­tu­ni­ties is trans­fer­ring $3.5 mil­lion in out­stand­ing in­cen­tive pay­ments over to the gen­er­al-rev­enue fund, ac­cord­ing to the Palm Beach Post. But so long as the in­sti­tute can main­tain its op­er­a­tions, which they’ve promised at least through 2017 — the state won’t be re­pos­sess­ing any of the equip­ment it pur­chased.

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