St. Joseph County Finances
Follow the money. In its revealing financial report The Proposed Indiana Enterprise Center: The Risks of, and Alternatives to, a Flawed Economic Development Model, the OSAA demonstrates St. Joseph County, IN, has been spending taxpayer dollars on the Indiana Enterprise Center (IEC) for years without a return on its investment. We encourage you to read the entire report, summarized below.
The Proposed Indiana Enterprise Center: The Risks of, and Alternatives to, a Flawed Economic Development Model
Report Summary
The Open Space and Agricultural Alliance (OSAA) has released a report indicating the costs, both financial and non-financial, of the proposed St. Joseph County Indiana Enterprise Center (IEC). This report examines the industrial megaplex proposed for the New Carlisle area and contends that the proposed IEC plans have been based on a flawed model of economic development. Pursuing this model in the IEC, the report shows, will harm the county in multiple ways and is unlikely to achieve beneficial results. The report documents the following major flaws in the IEC’s development model:
(1) The financial incentives it employs to attract business are counterproductive. The proposed IEC’s development plan relies on financial incentives for businesses provided by tax abatements and spending from tax increment financing (TIF) districts. Using county funds for these incentives burdens county taxpayers, deprives local governments of needed funds, has little effect on business’s decisions to relocate, and yields few jobs for the money used.
(2) The use of TIF districts for development funding mandates a high-stakes gambling approach to development, requiring the county to use debt-based financing and to sink millions of dollars into the project over many years before there is any prospect of return on investment.
(3) In addition to these financial costs, the IEC’s focus on greenfield development in an agricultural region of the county leads to significant nonfinancial costs, for which the project does not adequately account. The report documents these costs, which include the loss of agricultural businesses and land area; environmental concerns, reduction of services for residents of the County, and reduction in the quality of life for area residents.
(4) Most seriously, the proposed IEC project fails to address the real development goals of the people of St. Joseph County. The report shows how the proposed IEC project misunderstands the proper purpose of economic development, which is to improve people’s lives.
The report concludes with a discussion of a new vision for economic development for the County. That view of economic development would recognize that development must provide benefits to area residents and improve their quality of life; that farmland is not vacant space, but rather the location of legitimate economic activity; and that development must be shaped by the needs and concerns of the people who will be affected.