Rick Scott Paid $200,000 In Tax Incentives To Company In Which He Had Financial Interest

Gov. Rick Scott’s administration paid $200,000 in job-creation tax incentives to a Fort Myers-based cancer treatment company in which the governor had a personal financial interest.

The incentives to a management services subsidiary of 21^st Century Oncology were approved by the state three days after Scott’s election in November 2010, while then-fellow Republican Gov. Charlie Crist was still in office. Two years later, at the company’s urging, Gov. Scott’s Department of Economic Opportunity amended the incentives agreement to make it more favorable to 21^stCentury.

Specifically, the new deal gave 21^st Century an extra year to create promised jobs and wage levels, relinquished the state’s previously negotiated contractual power to “unilaterally cancel” the agreement if 21^stCentury refused to allow public access to certain information about the deal and added an additional state excise tax to the list of taxes eligible for refunds.

Florida Bulldog previously reported that Republican Scott – via his “blind trust”  – owned an indirect interest in 21^st Century Oncology via his $210,000 investment in Vestar Capital Partners, the private-equity firm that owned about two-thirds of its stock. The February 2016 story disclosed how in 2012 21^st Century was awarded an unprecedented no-bid, 25-year radiology contract by Broward Health’s board of commissioners, which are appointed by the governor.