economic development

30 Sep, 2018

Google’s secrecy agreement with the Montgomery County IDB should be undone

By |2020-11-19T12:35:59-06:00September 30, 2018|Categories: economic development, exemptions, Legislature|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments

The Google groundbreaking via WRKN February 2018. On Dec. 22 2015, the Industrial Development Board of Montgomery County entered into a “Payment in Lieu of Tax Agreement” with Google “to induce” it to build and operate an information technology center near Clarksville. It provided that: Google, through its company Foxman LLC, would take over property (which the government had purchased with taxpayer funds) through a lease agreement; The industrial development board would issue as much as $2 billion in industrial revenue bonds to help Google finance additional facilities and equipment on the property, and; Google would be relieved from paying any taxes on the land for 20 years, [...]

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11 Jul, 2018

How much is AllianceBernstein getting in incentives? Sorry, that’s redacted

By |2018-07-13T17:03:33-05:00July 11, 2018|Categories: economic development, exemptions|Tags: , , |1 Comment

The Nashville Business Journal reported today that government attorneys believe it's OK to redact information in a document put before a vote of Metro Nashville's industrial development board. That members of a governing body were kept in the dark and apparently had no concern about it demonstrates just how far we've come in our local and state government culture. It's sloppy government and the citizens of Tennessee deserve better. It concerns AllianceBernstein, which is moving its global headquarters from New York to Nashville. From the Business Journal, as reported by Adam Sichko: What the state has disclosed is a $17.5 million jobs grant tied to the money manager's decision to [...]

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17 Sep, 2017

Newspaper probe of economic development reveals big gaps in transparency, accountability

By |2017-09-17T18:12:37-05:00September 17, 2017|Categories: economic development|Tags: , , |0 Comments

The state's four largest newspapers published an examination of local and state economic development programs and came up with this answer: Are Tennessee job subsidies a success? Secrecy makes it nearly impossible to know. Across the country, citizens and some lawmakers have been asking for more accountability and transparency from economic development programs that would show which job subsidies are effective and which are not. This is a pretty cool database that allows you to check on the FastTrack grant program in your county. You can see how many jobs companies in your county promised, and how many they say they have produced. FastTrack grants are one of the [...]

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26 Oct, 2016

ECD posts online database of FastTrack grants, but leaves out job creation

By |2019-09-11T18:57:25-05:00October 26, 2016|Categories: economic development, open data|Tags: , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development has posted online a searchable database of FastTrack grants since 2011, but has left out key information it gathers on job creation. Mike Reicher, a data reporter on The Tennessean's investigative reporting team, writes about the development in some depth here: State releases list of business grants totaling $400 M. There are many things to like about the database from an open government perspective. For one, it replaces what essentially were PDFs of FastTrack grants, and PDFs of other documents associated with the grants, but in a jumble of different styles that made it difficult to make connections or draw any meaning from it. The new database is [...]

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2 Jun, 2016

72% of Tennesseans think the state is not transparent with economic incentives to corporations

By |2019-09-11T18:56:25-05:00June 2, 2016|Categories: economic development|Tags: , , , |2 Comments

Just how transparent is the state of Tennessee with its economic development programs? In the eyes of Tennesseans, not very. A new poll by icitizen and The Beacon Center of Tennessee measured opinions about the state's economic development activities. The Beacon Center favors stemming "corporate handouts" to specific companies in favor of lowering business taxes for everyone. Most of the questions were designed to measure approval or disapproval of incentive programs. While the poll results show mixed opinions about tax breaks for select companies, what's indisputable is that Tennesseans largely think the state is not transparent about them. A whopping 72 percent agreed with the statement: "State government is not transparent with the incentives it [...]

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