Sean C. Morgan
A job credit program approved recently by the City Council will pull down barriers and function as a marketing tool in the city’s pursuit of economic development, city officials say.
The council approved the program during its regular meeting March 14. The program provides up to $30,000 in credits toward city fees over a five-year period if a business creates new jobs.
“Right now, it’s a marketing tool as we start working with our partners to recruit,” said City Manager Ray Towry. “Our goal is to reduce barriers for relocation and expansion. Some of those are fees.”
In addition to enterprise zone benefits, it’s another carrot to draw business to Sweet Home, Towry said. At the same time, the arrangement functions as a partnership to justify leveraging tax dollars.
A business can receive $1,500 in credits per qualified job, based on state enterprise zone standards, said Public Works Director Mike Adams. An additional $1,500 per job is available if the job pays at least $31,000 per year, the annual average household wage in the Sweet Home area in 2014. To qualify for the job credit program, a business must be pre-certified by the state enterprise zone board.
Enterprise zone property tax exemptions for up to three years are available to businesses that expand and add one new job or 10 percent more jobs, whichever is greater. If they add a job paying 150 percent the county average, they can extend the exemption to up five years.
McCool Millworks, located at the intersection of 18th and Main streets used the enterprise zone program, and the city expanded the Sweet Home zone to Halsey in 2007 to provide the exemption to a mill that expanded there in recognition that the entire county would benefit from the expansion through economic growth.
The job credit program may be used to cover the cost of business licensing and land development fees. Some fees may not be offset by the credit, including state surcharges on various building permits, utility fees, system development charges and improvement assessments. The funds are budgeted in the city’s General Fund and, from an accounting perspective, used to pay the fees to other relevant funds.
Adams said the program differentiates benefits based on income in an effort to encourage the creation of family wage jobs.
“It doesn’t do you a lot of good from an economic development standpoint to create a lot of part time and minimum wage jobs,” Towry said.
City staff presented the concept to the council’s Administration, Finance and Property Committee in September. Staff brought the program to the committee in an effort to meet goals adopted for 2016 by the council to promote a healthy economy.
Adams developed the program based on one in Coos Bay, he said, although Coos Bay hadn’t used the program yet.
With the program untested, the council will revisit it in three years, Adams said.
This week, the council will receive a draft of an Economic Opportunity Analysis. It is scheduled at its March 11 meeting to consider whether to adopt it.
“This was something that was started with Craig (Martin, former city manager) and Laura LaRoque (former planner),” Adams said. In the wake of the Great Recession and changes in state rules about economic development, it’s time to re-evaluate what’s really happening in Sweet Home.
The update is funded by a grant from the Department of Land Conservation and Development, Adams said. “This analysis will allow us to update our Comprehensive Plan” and meet statewide Planning Goal Nine, which addresses economic development.
The EOA includes a buildable lands inventory, and it provides projections for needed land, Adams said. Right now, the analysis shows Sweet Home has enough buildable land to accommodate business growth over the next 20 years, a projection of 585 new jobs.
The EOA will provide ideas, direction and objectives to city staff members as they move forward with economic development efforts, Adams said. “We, as staff, are going to know where to go.”
Elsewhere in economic development efforts, the city has narrowed a field of eight applicants to four for community development director, Towry said. The position will be responsible for planning and economic development and will supervise planning and building services.
Seven were qualified for the job, with experience in both areas, and at least one has international certification in economic development, Towry said, so he’s “really ecstatic about the possibilities.”
The new position will represent a cultural shift in the Community Development Department as it picks up economic development director duties, Towry said.
“It’s going to give economic development in Sweet Home some stability. It’s not the fault of the people who have been working on it, but bringing it into City Hall as a job function will bring stability.”
He anticipates the position being filled in June.