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Sarasota News Leader November 22, 2013 Page 24 Laffer is due to be paid half its $90,000 fee upon delivery of that version, and it will present its final draft in January instead of December, as originally planned. Staff members had been preparing a response to the draft to be sent back to Laffer this week, but Harmer said he instructed them to put that work on hold. But even if its mission is restricted to reviewing just fiscal neutrality, can Laffer really be trusted to do so objectively? That's what Commissioner Nora Patterson asked. She is the lone board member to support bringing in an academic team, instead of Laffer to study the fiscal neutrality element. It was no secret that Laffer had a supply-side point-of-view, she pointed out to her colleagues this week. "You got your answer, from their particular perspective, what one should do with fiscal neutrality, which is scrap it," Arthur Laffer is a nationally known economist. Photo courtesy The Laffer Center she pointed out. "If the board doesn't want to scrap it and wants it fixed, it seems logical you would go to an organization or an individual that is at least neutral on those issues." Harmer said Laffer representatives told him they originally intended to provide a more "macro-level review" of county policy, but that they could indeed still objectively analyze fiscal neutrality. Without taking a vote, the commission approved the adjustments to the report timeline that Harmer presented. Donna Arduin was hired to examine the county's 2050 Plan. Photo courtesy Virginia Institute for Public Policy Patterson said the first draft perhaps gives the commission "more insight" into Laffer's thinking. "Her opinion of fiscal neutrality is pretty clearly expressed," Patterson noted of the report's author. "Whether she's right or not, she says it doesn't work. She says it's irrelevant and get rid of it. I'm not casting any blame on her. She says what she thinks." %