It’s a law designed to make Jacksonville more competitive in bringing in business.

“Far too long, Jacksonville has been as a disadvantage.  Companies looking to expand or relocate could find a faster process in other cities,” says Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown.

Brown signed a bill Wednesday which will reduce the amount of time it takes to get an incentive package through City Council.  Any package costing less than $300,000 can be approved by the Council after just one reading now, and anything over that amount will need just two readings.

He says this not just strengthens Jacksonville in terms of being able to compete for business, but allows for greater potential growth.

“It’s about stepping up at the national and global levels to make sure we’re in the mix when companies look to relocate or expand,” he says.

Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Jerry Mallot says the amount of time it formerly took to get a deal through from start to finish had actually caused some companies to bypass the city entirely.

“Our process not is moving at the speed of business and we can get things done,” he says.

Brown says it used to take up to 15 weeks for some of the larger packages to get through.  Mallot says that time could drop as low as five weeks now, because in addition to the shorter time span in Council, they can also perform some more work concurrent with the proposal going through the Council.

Mallot says the deals themselves will still go through the same scrutiny by business and city leaders, despite the shorter timeline.