Martin Luther King Economic Development Corporation v. Department Community Affairs

This is an appeal from a final agency order of the Florida Department of Community Affairs [the Department] which denied an application for a funding grant under the Florida Community Development Corporation Support and Assistance Program. The applicant Martin Luther King Economic Development Corporation [MLK], whose application was denied below, appeals this order. We find no merit in MLK's points on appeal and affirm. At the outset, MLK attacks certain aspects of the Department's rules for evaluating grant applications under the above-stated community assistance program on the ground that the rules are allegedly inconsistent with the enabling legislation. It contends that the subject rules do not require the department secretary to ""consider"" the relative degree of distress of the target area served by the community development corporation, as provided by Section 290.036(5), Florida Statutes (1985). We cannot agree because Rule 9B-14.0081 of the Florida Administrative Code specifically provides that all grant applicants are to be ranked according to a formula indicating the relative degree of distress of the target area served by the grant applicant. In order to even be eligible for a grant, an applicant must satisfy a certain minimum threshhold distress score -- which must be set so that the number of eligible applicants is no more than twice the number of grants available. In a crowded field of applicants, this provision may eliminate altogether the least distressed applicants; in a small field of applicants, as here, this provision may not eliminate any applicant. In any event, however, the rule requires the department secretary to ""consider"" the relative degree of distress of the target area served by the grant applicant and is in no way inconsistent with Section 290.036(5), Florida Statutes (1985).