Georgia has been building a fortress economy since coming out of the great recession. “The number one state to do business” is as much of a mission statement as it is a ranking.
The formula is quite public and relatively simple on the surface. The state begins by ensuring a relatively lost cost of doing business, which involves more than just taxes. This includes available land, labor, cost of health care, energy, and infrastructure. Regulation is limited to what is needed, rather than an attempt by government to micromanage private enterprise to meet the whims of popular opinion.
On top of that, the state offers incentives for businesses to relocate here, or to grow their existing operations. The vast majority of these “costs” are abatements of future taxes that wouldn’t be paid if the organization receiving the benefits didn’t locate here or grow here.
The actual state dollars invested usually fall into two categories. Infrastructure improvement costs are often shared by the state and or local governments. This includes things like adding an interchange to accommodate truck access to freeways without impeding existing traffic patterns, or extending rail lines or utilities to serve large development sites.
The other category is something that the state already spends about half of its annual tax dollars on, which is education. Our largest deals usually involve a dedicated training center to ensure workers in the area have specialized skills needed by the employers. As the number of people in the workforce has dropped significantly since the pandemic, the ability to supply a qualified workforce is a decided edge in the race for economic development.
The state then refines our pitch to the opportunities that the market provides, and matches that to the resources we have. Governor Deal was instrumental in meeting the need of employers with a high demand career initiative, providing tuition to our technical colleges if students would study career…
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