ECD Archives - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government

14 Jun, 2024

Nashville journalist Adam Sichko reveals state’s secret Amazon incentive — 5 years later
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Nashville journalist Adam Sichko reveals state’s secret Amazon incentive — 5 years later

economic development

Nashville journalist Adam Sichko reveals state’s secret Amazon incentive — 5 years later

By Deborah Fisher|2024-06-14T08:23:17-05:00June 14, 2024|Categories: economic development|Tags: Adam Sichko, Amazon, Bob Rolfe, ECD, economic development records, Nashville Business Journal|0 Comments

You've got to hand it to Adam Sichko, a senior reporter with the Nashville Business Journal. Five years ago, Amazon was shopping the country for a new headquarters location that promised 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion corporate investment. Which state and city would give them the most incentives (money)? But the state invoked a law that allowed it to keep what it thought was "sensitive" information confidential for five years. Well, that five years were up this year, and Sichko got the records.

16 Nov, 2021

Despite pushes for more accountability, economic development remains opaque in Tennessee

By Deborah Fisher|2021-11-16T13:14:06-06:00November 16, 2021|Categories: economic development|Tags: ECD, economic development records, Megasite Authority of West Tennessee, Open Records Act exemptions, proprietary records, tax credits, trade secrets|1 Comment

Taxpayers don't know what they are getting for their money despite some lawmakers pushing for more accountability and information. Why? A web of exceptions to Tennessee's Public Records laws and lack of meaningful reporting on outcomes prevent transparency in the state's economic development programs.

26 Oct, 2016

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

By Deborah Fisher|2019-09-11T18:57:25-05:00October 26, 2016|Categories: economic development, open data|Tags: ECD, economic development, tax credits|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 [...]

2 Jun, 2016

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

By Deborah Fisher|2019-09-11T18:56:25-05:00June 2, 2016|Categories: economic development|Tags: Beacon Center, ECD, economic development, tax credits|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 [...]

1 Apr, 2014

Exemptions generous when it comes to economic development records

By Deborah Fisher|2014-04-10T11:27:50-05:00April 1, 2014|Categories: economic development|Tags: ECD, economic development records, newschannel5, Open Records Act exemptions|0 Comments

A few months ago, we reported here in a post about public records that the governor's office had denied state Rep. Mike Turner, D-Nashville, access to economic development records, citing two laws as the basis for protecting the information from public disclosure. Last night, those documents, leaked to NewsChannel 5's Phil Williams, became the basis of a story about the Haslam administration's effort to tie incentives to the outcome of work council discussions with Volkswagen over its plant in Chattanooga. The state's offer of about $300 million in incentives "subject to works council discussions between the State of Tennessee and VW being concluded to the satisfaction of the State of Tennessee" [...]