Regarding Rob Christensen’s Oct. 25 column “Big companies get the incentives” on big companies getting recruitment and expansion incentives: While small companies do not benefit from these incentives, the study he cited failed to look at the entire economic development picture.
Jobs are at a premium. In today’s global community, business retention and recruitment require an emphasis on competitive corporate tax rates, workforce training and the option of economic development incentives to attract businesses and retain and grow current industries. Nearly every state and major country uses these tools to remain competitive.
North Carolina must continue to use these tools to remain competitive in bringing jobs to our state. The state’s Job Development Investment Grant recently did just that. Fidelity Investments announced it will bring 600 jobs to Durham County thanks to the investment in economic development our state has made.
JDIG’s flexibility, accountability, self-funding and performance-based nature have made it a model for how states can grow good jobs that pay strong wages. North Carolina has been highly rated by the independent studies for the program’s accountability.
The investment North Carolina has made in economic development has generated excellent returns. In that all local and state incentives are calculated based on new capital investments and new jobs created, logically these types of incentives are used for larger projects.
Most of what we think of as small businesses do not do new capital investments or create jobs in the range necessary to qualify for what we think of as recruitment and expansion incentives. However, it is a great mistake to think that state funding and programs do not exist to help small businesses.
In fact, a tremendous amount of state funds are expended annually in ways that support small business growth through the following programs, to name a few: Community Colleges Small Business Centers, which provide training and continuing education for small-business people; the Small Business and Technology Development Centers, which provide counseling to small-business people; the International Trade Promotion program in the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, which helps small businesses get into overseas markets; the Travel and Tourism Program in the EDPNC, which promotes tourism in the state, a great deal of which benefits small businesses; and investments through the years from the State Retirement Fund into venture capital companies that benefit small businesses.
If one takes into account all of the state funding that benefits small businesses, that amount dwarfs what the state spends on business recruitment and expansion incentives.
There is no denying the effect of small businesses in the aggregate, and our state supports that growth. However, continuing to stay competitive with other states in business recruitment is imperative in order to bring jobs to North Carolina.
Ernie Pearson
President, North Carolina Economic Developers Association
Raleigh
The length limit was waived to permit a fuller response to the ccolumn.
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