Leading Question

Southwest Florida is home to a variety of public-private partnerships, in sectors ranging from education to garbage collection to transportation to economic development to sports.

"When they’re done right, you can reduce costs, increase efficiency and produce better results for the customer," says Jon Hage, president and CEO of Charter Schools USA, which operates schools in Lee County that receive public funding.

The financial benefit can fuel public-private partnerships, but the reason for creating one shouldn’t just be about the dollars and cents, says Marlin Mosby, the Memphis, Tenn.-based managing director of office of Public Financial Management. (He spoke at a spring forum about public-private partnerships hosted by the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Naples and the Financial Planning Association of Southwest Florida.)

The successful ones are where the public sector has seriously thought about what it wants to get out of it, other than money, says Mosby, who was involved in projects including Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the FedEx Forum in Memphis. He sees a strong desire for public-private partnerships nationally because there is a general assumption that the private sector does things better than the public sector.

Massive complex projects related to transportation often are effective because the public sector needs firms with expertise, Mosby says. Other types of public-private partnerships include sports arenas and government functions, such as police, fire, garbage collection and sewers.

Public-private partnerships appear to work best when the government has a large piece of property or asset and needs help developing it from the private sector—a process that can be more nimble and efficient, says Todd Gates, CEO of GATES, a Naples-based construction management, general contracting and design build firm. For example, a public-private partnership called Panama Pacifico is working because the government of Panama owns so much property in the Republic of Panama.

"Most of the land here is all private," Gates says. "It’s not like there’s a lot of private developers that would say, ‘I need help, let me partner with the government.’ It’s usually the other way around."

Trial and error has shown Hage what is necessary to create successful public-private partnerships. For-profit Charter Schools USA, based in Fort Lauderdale, and Lee County Schools have had to determine the best models for sharing responsibility, who provides the oversight and how much regulation is appropriate. "You’re seeing today, after nearly 15 years of charter schools in Florida, and specifically in Lee County [since the first school opened in Bonita Springs in 2002] … you have high-performing schools that are producing higher academic achievement on whole than the school systems, while doing it for less money."

It took a buy-in from the public sector for Waste Management of Collier County to roll out Waste Watch, a community safety and surveillance program. Its 130-plus employees are trained to observe and report possible criminal activity or life-threatening situations on their weekly routes on county streets. "The benefit that we receive is just being a community partner," he says.

It could particularly be helpful when owners are out of town for an extended period, or have purchased large items that could attract criminals, says Larry Berg, senior district manager.

"We’re not there to stop crime," he says. "We’re there to assist, observe and protect."

Hage adds that several countries have large sectors of their economy designed around public-private partnerships. "America is a little slow to the punch," he says.
 

23 Million
Economic development incentives awarded by Lee County between 1996 and 2010.

May 18 The inaugural Harry Chapin Food Bank golf classic being held at Grandezza Country Club.