Front and Center: Moji Abimbola

In a region growing as quickly as Southwest Florida, predicting the future economic consequences of land-use policy decisions is a daunting task. It is also a task that Moji Abimbola looks forward to with characteristic optimism.

"In the next five years, I hope to deliver some answers to this area's questions in terms of land-use decisions and policy changes," says 28-year-old Abimbola, who became the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council's first full-time economist in mid-December. "I've got a lot to learn, but I also have a lot to offer."

As the planning council's regional economic analyst, Abimbola helps local governments make decisions by outlining each decision's fiscal consequences, sometimes as far as 30 years into the future. Using complex computer models along with statistical, trend and policy analysis, she predicts the year-by-year costs and revenues of proposed projects such as new roads and large developments.

The planning council is a state-funded but locally formed agency that assists governments throughout a six-county area. Working with governments, businesses, developers and institutions such as Florida Gulf Coast University, the council helps with long-term planning in areas as diverse as transportation, emergency preparedness, economic development and environmental protection.

"I was hired to study the fiscal impact of land-use decisions and policy changes, and to find out if we're going in the right direction on some of those decisions," explains Abimbola. "If we want to build a stadium, for example, I can use one of the models to make cost/revenue analyses and find out if it's going to sustain itself. It might lose money for the first five years, then turn around and become a benefit. I'll ask the models if, over a 30-year or 20-year period, it is something we want to do?"

"She's a unique hire for us in that it's the first time we have a professional economist on staff," says David Burr, the planning council's executive director. "Changes in growth-management legislation will require governments to produce economic feasibility reviews, starting in January 2007. She'll be able to use some new economic tools that will help that happen."

Abimbola most recently worked as a graduate research assistant at the Center for Transportation Research at the University of South Florida. A native of Nigeria, she moved to the United States nine years ago. After earning a bachelor's degree in economics from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, she moved to Tampa for postgraduate work. She now holds a master's degree in economics from USF, but says it was her hands-on experience with the transportation center that led to her getting the job at the planning council.

"I had done some work in Collier and Lee counties while I was in Tampa," says Abimbola. "I also worked with planners and engineers, doing statistical analysis for them. My experience with transportation was important too, I'm sure, because transportation is a big part of the growth here."

Since arriving in Fort Myers, Abimbola has been mastering the complex computer models she will be working with and gathering data. Much of her time will be spent working with the Fiscal Impact Analysis Model (FIAM) and Regional Economic Modeling Inc.'s program, Policy Insight (REMI).

"REMI is a very sophisticated and cutting-edge model," explains Gary Jackson, director of the Regional Economic Research Institute at FGCU's College of Business. "It can be used in two areas, the first being the economic impacts of a project like a convention center, development or new manufacturing firm. It can tell you what the project does in terms of the area's economy, what it means for the overall community. It is also used for policy analysis: what happens if you raise taxes and how that affects growth in a region, for example."

FIAM is a similar model developed by Fishkind & Associates in Orlando. It is designed to help local governments measure the effects a decision can have on the government's budget.

"It will tell you the budgetary impacts, the additional taxes a project might bring in and its costs," says Jackson. "The models are well-established and have been used in Tampa and South Florida. Now they're being offered out to other regional planning councils, and they are a great start."

"I came to this job being familiar with the models but they're pretty complex and they have to be calibrated to particular areas," says Abimbola. "FIAM is like a huge [Microsoft] Excel sheet with several tabs, if you can picture that. Right now I'm gathering the data we need and that can include budgets, population and demographics, both present and historical. Some of the information we get are just estimates. I've got to iron out the details."

The amount of information Abimbola needs to find, analyze and enter into the systems is tremendous, and she's currently concentrating on gathering Lee County data. Soon, she should be able to apply the computer models to some of the tricky decisions that come with rapid growth.

"Having Moji here is very significant," says Ken Heatherington, the council's planning director. "It shows the new direction planning organizations and governments are going.

"We're also excited about Moji because she's young. We've got a lot of corporate and historical knowledge in this office and we're looking to hand that off to some promising young people with an interest in long-term strategic planning."