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Akron
Beacon Journal...
Creating
JobsOhio
August 21, 2011
The
details of Ohio’s new
job-development strategy began to emerge last week. Officials in the
Kasich
administration described how the governor’s new private, nonprofit
agency,
JobsOhio, will work with regional economic development organizations
and a
restructured state Department of Development. Legislation needed to
implement
the strategy will be introduced in the fall.
Led
by Mark Kvamme, a successful
Silicon Valley venture capitalist, JobsOhio will take over the
job-creation
duties of the Department of Development, which will be downsized and
renamed
the Development Services Agency. Kasich and Kvamme envision JobsOhio
moving
more quickly and aggressively, unencumbered by statutes requiring the
development department to disclose the details about negotiations with
private
companies.
With
Ohio’s unemployment rate rising,
at 9 percent in July, Kvamme has made clear the No. 1 measurement of
success
will be job creation. In effect, the Kasich team has promised that it
knows how
to deliver on the theme it made the centerpiece of its campaign.
Still,
substantial questions remain.
Moving forward, the speed and freedom of JobsOhio must be balanced by
transparency and accountability, necessary to protect the interests of
taxpayers and to guard against insider deals.
Although
JobsOhio will raise private
capital and have a funding stream from state liquor profits, the deals
it hopes
to hatch also involve public money, state loans, grants and tax
incentives. It
is crucial that the new Development Services Agency have a detailed
contract
with JobsOhio and maintain final approval of incentive funds, as
discussed by
Christiane Schmenk, the state’s development director.
The
problem is, in creating JobsOhio,
the legislature unwisely decided against full compliance with laws
involving
open records, open meetings and ethics, issuing an invitation to
corrupting
ways. The contract between the revamped development agency and JobsOhio
must function
to provide a clear picture of what the private, nonprofit is doing.
JobsOhio
also will work with six
regional economic development agencies (among them, Team NEO in
Northeast Ohio)
and the high-tech Third Frontier program. As much as Kasich and Kvamme
want
JobsOhio to move “at the speed of the market,” it must function within
a
network of existing agencies and programs that represent the
government’s
traditional role in economic development.
So,
a potential pitfall looms: By
attaching another element in implementing the state’s economic
development
strategy, JobsOhio risks complicating rather than clarifying matters,
adding a
layer to the decision-making process.
JobsOhio
was created with a sense of
urgency, the initial legislation privatizing job creation moving
quickly to
passage. This fall, legislators must look carefully at questions of
oversight,
accountability and performance, all leftover business from earlier this
year.
Read
it at the Akron Beacon Journal
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