Last week, I attended the Ohio Economic Development Association’s (OEDA) 2011 Annual Summit in Columbus, themed "Ohio in Change." We heard from a number of speakers regarding relevant economic development topics facing Ohio today. Some discussions included the current status of JobsOhio and the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD), workforce development issues and programs, and a variety of project financing options. We also heard about the Ohio Department of Transportation's (ODOT) commitment to retain its status as a sustaining partner in economic development.
Although a substantial amount of valuable and informative data was shared with the conference attendees, I obtained four significant, substantive takeaways from the Summit that I believe are important to know. If you didn’t have an opportunity to attend the conference and want to know "What did I miss ?," the takeaways are as follows:
1) Mark Kvamme, CIO of JobsOhio, spoke to the group on the first day of the Summit and said that the State (JobsOhio and the Ohio Department of Development) is a big believer in metrics. Through the preferred metric, "net new jobs," the State will track success and will not cite job numbers or take credit for any job creation in which JobsOhio did not taken part. Moreover, Kvamme articulated that measuring return on investment (ROI) over a short period of time, in his experience, is critical in gauging success and will be a major factor in granting incentives going forward.
2) Later that morning, Director of the Ohio Department of Development Christiane Schmenk discussed how ODOD has started, and will continue to restructure its agency operations as well as its development team as the department will soon be known as the Ohio Development Services Agency. One of the stark changes that she noted (and probably the most substantial takeaway of all these points) was that new positions to be created by a company located in or relocating to Ohio, for purposes of the job creation tax credit (JCTC), will be calculated from the date of the State’s offer letter and not from the date of Tax Credit Authority/final departmental approval.
This policy shift will provide several improvements. It will clarify the State's incentive process and reduce the administrative timetable from one to two months down to days or weeks. More importantly, it will reduce the need to "rush" projects through the approval process, and allow the appropriate amount of time for due diligence from the staff without affecting the projects timetable or the State's ability to land the project.
3) The governor's assistant policy director for workforce development, Rich Frederick, stated that workforce development is a priority for the State, but that the current model is too fragmented to effectively serve those in need of assistance -- 77 programs in 13 agencies -- and must be revamped. Frederick assured the group that he is currently working through this process and developments are forthcoming in this area.
4) Finally, Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray announced the creation of the Office of Jobs & Commerce within ODOT which will be led by Deputy Director Glenda Bumgarner. This office was established to provide direct assistance to economic development professionals working on projects that have transportation barriers needing immediate assistance.
The staff of this office, which will have a representative assigned to each ODOD region of the State, will assess the transportation infrastructure requirements of the project and provide feedback and potential financial and/or regulatory assistance where practicable. This model had similar components in the Strickland administration, and is evolving under Director Wray, as evidenced by the creation of a designated office and additional staff support.
Although there were other valuable takeaways, these were my substantive reflections of OEDA’s Annual Summit. I hope that you have the opportunity to share your conference experiences with others as well. Next year's conference will be held in Dublin, Ohio, at the Columbus Marriott Northwest.
