DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Documents we obtained today show Daytona Beach is sitting on tens of millions of dollars that are supposed to be used to revitalize struggling areas. The money is in Community Redevelopment Agency zones, which use future property tax growth to pay for public works projects.
Some commissioners said the amount of money surprised them, and they’re responsible for approving projects and plans, but claim the city never made the exact numbers available until this week.
It’s led to a lot of frustration for businesses, especially here on the beachside, who have been asking the city for more attention for years.
The five community redevelopment areas in Daytona Beach have millions of dollars available to spend to improve things like streets, landscaping, or public safety.
But the budget we got ahold of shows that in some zones, more money is being spent on staff salaries than on actual approved projects. It’s something the city was questioned about by Senator Tom Leek in October.
“You collected $290,000 dollars plus of which you used $279,000 to pay staff, and the district gets $21,000. What is the justification?” said Leek.
The city’s largest CRA is the Main Street district, which will have more than $13 million in it by next year. Right now, the city has $11 million budgeted for projects, but only one of those has been approved.
President of the Main Street Merchants Association Tom Caffrey said beachside businesses have been begging for relief for years.
“I think the city is focused on dramatic projects. I think they’re focused on big projects. But a lot more good can be done and quickly and again it’s all just low-hanging fruit, whether it’s graffiti, whether it’s patrolling, having security,” said Caffrey.
We looked into state law surrounding CRA funds. It says the money has to be “appropriated to a specific redevelopment project pursuant to an approved community redevelopment plan,” meaning the city can’t sit on the money and let the accounts grow year after year.
Commissioners say they are meeting again in January to decide where they want all of the money to go now that they know how much they have to work with.
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