The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne has written about an issue that Indianapolis Business Journal and perhaps
other news organizations in the state have grappled with in reporting on economic development, namely whether the state
is obligated to divulge wage figures when offering tax breaks to businesses. Read the story here.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. makes a practice of withholding
wage figures, arguing that to disclose them would put the companies at a competitive disadvantage.
The flip side
of the coin is that the tax breaks in effect are a public subsidy; thus, the reasoning goes, the information should be made
available. Otherwise, how else could the public determine whether the incentives are doing any good?
Broadening
the argument for disclosure, Ohio and other states routinely make the information available. And the Journal Gazette
quoted a lawyer for the Hoosier State Press Association saying there is no law to prevent IEDC from disclosing wage figures.
Which side do you come down on?
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Welcome to the archives for NewsTalk, an IBJ blog published from November 2007 through December 2010.
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See, I told u Indyman and Dipsicle....this 8 days is overkill. It's barely worth a weekend....great job Tony George! Your dream has been fulfilled....he fans want the I r l back. Thats how good it was.....and that sucked.
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I have been in training for a short time now but right off I can see that safety and quality are the number one issues, my experience as of late has been a positive one, the employees along with Jeff the plant manager and the operation supervisor as well as the engineers are a highly motivated group of people, what an asset for the area to have and for company's in need of a quality metal products.
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Pimlico
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While I understand the severity of their actions as well as everyones eagerness to hold them responsible for thier lost funds, these gentlemen did know how to make money. Dispite thier poor decisions over the ownership of Fair they had made several wise investments which paid them greatly. This proves they do have the potential to rebuild so they can repay. I do not feel they should live the life of luxuary but given an opportunity could they find ways of repaying the debts? They are doing nothing now but being a burden on tax payers. Just a thought!!!!!
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You guys have some "interesting" comments to say the least. I hope you will call in and share those opinions starting June 1. I'm looking forward to having you on the air.
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On a similar note to that, there are services like Vocational Rehab., which is a service provided in Indiana (and probably in other states as well), which uses tax dollars (based on county) to assist people with disabilities. Do we have the right to find out how much is being used on each client of Voc. Rehab?
These might not have exactly clear results, but bring up some good legal questions of where do we draw the line between privacy and public knowledge.
While I support disclosure of data that confirm decisions regarding appropriation of tax dollars, I cannot support disclosure of information that would discourage business from expanding in or relocating to Indiana. We must be careful of imposing our "rights" at taxpayers when it may prove detrimental to the master plan. We must judge the efforts of the IEDC and other commerce agencies in the state by their overall results, not by each individual decision they make. That is why we elect/appoint them, so they can administer the details and then report back to us on a regular basis. We are similar to stockholders in the regard that we must trust our Board of Directors and the management of the company with our investments and hold them accountable when profitability targets are not met.
Clearly the IEDC does not want public oversight of its effectiveness considering it wants retract promised public access to the water down State Board of Accounts audits, independent GAAP accounting audits and the non-deliberative project information.
Current IEDC management needs to open up or be taught a lesson in court.
Can we get this article cross blogged with the Indiana Lawyer team and have some legal points in on the conversation? I would love to see how this currently fairs on the legal books and how laws play into this.