As I continue to think about Grant County Economic Development’s 35th year, I drive around the county and recall the various projects the corporation has been involved with over the decades. Now part of this is also that I am a little bit older and have been in this role for almost 2/3rds of the corporation’s existence. It is quite fun to drive through the various communities and recall the history and the involvement with various businesses or buildings or projects. “Oh I remember when”, becomes a comment heard in my car. It is fun, but it is also very important to remember. Every year we have to discuss with our various communities and county the importance of GCEDC, and remembering what we were involved in is needed when discussing and planning the future of our organization. So I sat down at the computer and started to put together a Powerpoint for my board members. Since we are in budget season, I focused on the projects that my office was directly involved with, and the amount of property taxes each project generates annually. I also estimated the number of new full-time jobs created and an annual payroll paid. What is the fiscal impact of economic development? That is a difficult question to clearly and concisely answer. There are property taxes, that is probably the easiest to answer, but then a new employee is paid wages, which in-turn spends their pay on goods and services in the area, they buy groceries, they buy gas, they pay rent or buy a house and pay their own property taxes. I recall one economist saying a dollar paid by an employer “turns over” 6 times, or that dollar gets paid to a worker, who then spends that dollar at the local store, the store owner then takes that dollar and pays for fuel in their truck, that gas station owner then takes that dollar and pays for employees or goods, etc. So I tried to demonstrate what the corporation has done in the communities around the county. Another aspect I touch on, is when we have people live and work here, because we have sound economic development, these workers have children, who attend our K12 schools, these public schools rely on students for State funding and averages around $10,000 per student per year.
So I evaluated property taxes paid on projects that I worked on, and broke them down to County, City/Village/Town, Public School and SWTC, which is how property taxes are dispersed, and I tracked the number of jobs created and estimated the payroll paid annually. Property taxes paid to just the county on the projects I have worked on total around: $209,500 annually, usually the property taxes portions paid to the City/Village and public school are higher than the county’s while the portion paid to SWTC is the lowest. The projects evaluated are the bigger industrial projects that I aided in developing. There are many smaller projects and entrepreneur projects that have been created that are in an industry park, main street or a person’s basement or back shed that generates revenue but was not part of this review. Payroll of the jobs created on the projects I evaluated for my study are estimated at over $100Million annually.
I need to point out that in every case, economic development does not happen on its own. We have many partners. The municipalities and businesses are the most important, but also needed are the other supporting entities, the other economic development organizations, the chambers of commerce, the banks, the SWTCs and UWPs, and others.
My retrospective also has little notes to give insights into the stories with each project. Like the time I was yelled at numerous times by an employee of the DNR. This is a highlight to me because it was one of the most difficult projects but the results demonstrated the value of GCEDC. There is a story with each project, and with each story valuable experience.
In retrospect, Grant County EDC has proven its value no matter how a person would evaluate it. Ron Brisbois
