Manatee County school board should award contracts to local firms

I read the Herald article about the new Manatee County transit facility on Monday. This is well overdue and kudos need to go to Ron Schulhofer, William Steele, Ed Hunzeker and the Board of County Commissioners for making this much-needed facility a reality.

In reading the article, I was particularly struck by the salient comments made by the president of the construction firm that built the facility. Specifically, he mentioned that 75 percent of the construction dollars spent stayed in either Manatee or Sarasota counties to help boost our regional economy. That was impressive and a definite “thought-starter.”

That’s when I recalled that I recently heard that the Manatee County School Board was planning on giving architectural and construction contracts to non-local companies for the proposed new high school. I read earlier that the cost of that new facility was going to be around $80 million. That’s about five times the published cost of the transit facility.

One has to wonder if our regional economy will benefit from the monies expended on the design and construction of the high school or will our taxpayer dollars simply fly away to benefit other parts of the country.

With the recent referendum — which I strongly supported — the Manatee school district was ostensibly going to do a better job with their money management. Obviously the practice of hiring companies that are headquartered in other parts of Florida — or in other states — does not do anything to help our local economy grow and prosper.

This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Manatee County school board should award contracts to local firms."