Indiana's new governor, Mike Pence, has announced plans for a new level of public access to information about Indiana economic development spending and about jobs created by companies that receive tax credits and incentives from the state. We commend Pence for this and any other efforts that open up doors of state government to its citizens.
He plans to launch a "transparency portal" that will provide jobs information.
Courier & Press staff writer Eric Bradner reported last week that Pence's initiative is intended to address criticism over the performance of Indiana's quasi-public job-creation agency, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., under former Gov. Mitch Daniels. Pence was inaugurated as governor on Monday, succeeding Daniels. The critics say that the state has in the past announced companies' plans to create thousands of jobs, plus the utilization of incentives and tax credits, but never tracking whether all of those deals came through.
Indeed, earlier this month, the IEDC said it had secured commitments last year from 256 companies to create 27,620 new jobs. But Greg Wathen, president and chief executive officer of the Economnic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana, cautioned in a report by Courier & Press staff writer Susan Orr on Jan. 4 for Hoosiers not to read too much into IEDC numbers. He said the IEDC numbers only included projects in which the state offered economic incentives, not other job development.
Hopefull, Pence's transparency portal will allow Hoosiers more confidence in job numbers. Correctly, he said, Hoosiers have a right to know about the results of job recruitment.
© 2024 courierpress.com, All rights reserved.