- The states are inconsistent in the way they report on their major incentive programs — A total of 154 of the 250 incentive programs examined — 62 percent —disclose which companies receive public support, while 96 do not. But almost every state knows how to disclose and does so: 48 states plus D.C. — 96 percent — provide some degree of recipient disclosure.
- Nevada, Connecticut, and Illinois have the best overall disclosure web pages, but even Nevada’s score, at 64 out of 100, would be near-failing as a letter grade.
- Nevada's high score is attributed in part to its 2015 law requiring the governor’s economic development office to disclose recipient level data for various tax abatements.
- Alabama and Georgia had zero transparency and both states' performance declined from GJF's 2014 survey, when they had a small amount of transparency. North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine, and Delaware are other laggard states showing minimal transparency in the 2022 study.
- Too many states still fail to disclose critical info, such as actual jobs created by their incentives.
- Most states rate poorly on giving advance notice of proposed deals — Only 4% of the 250 programs rated post the full incentive details ahead of a public hearing so that residents can knowledgeably oppose, support or suggest improvements to them.
Why Transparency is Key to Exposing Economic Development ScamsTransparency is crucial for evaluating economic development efforts. Explains Report author Kasia Tarczynska: "Across the country, states have created thousands of tax breaks, incentive payments and other economic development programs that transfer public money to private companies in the name of “job creation” or other vague but broadly popular policy goals. But there is no way to know whether any of it is working without transparency." To be sure, transparency is not the same as effectiveness or accountability. And you don't have the means to verify the accuracy of what states post online. But without company-specific, deal-specific disclosure, the public simply can't answer the most basic return-on-investment, accountability or equity questions: - Which companies are recipients of these incentives?
- What kinds of companies are they?
- How much money did they receive?
- Are they delivering on the number of jobs promised?
Without answers to those questions, you can't even have an informed debate and policymakers can't properly monitor programs or deals. Who Benefits from these "Closed Book" Economic Development Incentives?Secrecy in economic development ultimately benefits the companies trying to leverage even sweeter deals for themselves at the expense of everyone else. This doesn’t just result in wasteful spending, as the report explains: "[Bad economic development] siphons money away from important public needs, like affordable housing, healthcare, transit and schools. It stifles competition, creativity and growth, by giving one lucky business an unfair economic advantage over its competitors, who are usually smaller businesses that cannot afford to lavish campaign contributions on policymakers or employ teams of lobbyists to woo economic-development officials." This is the sixth transparency report GJF has produced since 2007. The whole point of these periodic surveys is to prod states to improved their transparency practices -- and thereby deliver true open government that protects the citizens' interest in these economic development projects. A State-by-State "Report Card" on Economic Development TransparencyGood Jobs First practices what it preaches: its report gathers facts on 250 economic development programs across the country and delivers a transparent and non-partisan analysis of what it found state-by-state. The chart below shows which states are the biggest transparency offenders. Below the chart you'll see how GJF rated each state -- its numeric score from zero (Alabama and Georgia) to 64 (Nevada). Click each link to read GJF's analysis of each state.
|
