One way to improve economic development outcomes and local wages is to increase enrollment and employment in information technology pathways and careers. Info Tech careers pay $20K more than the average for all occupational groupings. If we assume a 2.0 economic impact multiplier, for every  grouping of 1,000 retained and employed info tech postsecondary completers that equates to $40M in increased annual wages. The above chart shows the Shelby County gap compared to 15 peers in info tech postsecondary completion awards when compared to the peer average.

The Upskill901 conference was successful at convening stakeholders and alerting attendees of the coming disruption of automation. But few participant tools were left behind by the out of town think tanks in Brookings and Burning Glass to facilitate needed conversations, thinking and planning in support of connected workforce development implementation.

Placeholders are like a database in tables, queries, user interface and reporting output in that that provide organizing constructs to help answer questions and provide connectivity to services. Examples of placeholder constructs that could have been left behind for connecting the workforce development system include:

• Benchmarking, goal setting, planning, implementation and evaluation
• Data, assessment and career pathways curriculum
• Identify, promote, enroll and graduate  (IPEG)
• Relevant local data

To that extent, this blog is expanding on those gap opportunities while proposing solutions for connected workforce development. In the previous blog, we disclosed a methodology to identify occupational groups in need of career pathways promotion intervention based on local ecosystem and employer demand. This blog will drill down on the need for more information technology postsecondary awards to serve coming transformational automation.

Getting Specific with Workforce SMART Goals

In the last blog we took a guess at SMART goals for information technology, business/finance and entertainment media careers. This blog will get specific by writing SMART goals for increasing information technology completion awards by level. The above table, by award level, shows the “ACTUAL” peer average completion awards, “SHELBY COUNTY” actuals and a “PRORATE” column to adjust the peer average based on population.

With the above, we can generate data informed Shelby County SMART goals to achieve above peer average completion rates in the information technology field. See below SMART goals for increasing Shelby County information technology completion awards:

• Increase less than 1 year awards by 50 in 2 years and 150 in 4 years
• Increase 1 year/+ awards by 15 in 2 years and by 50 in 4 years
• Increase Associate awards by 20 in 2 years and 60 in 4 years
• Increase Bachelor / Post Certification by 60 in 2 years and 180 in 4 years
• Increase Masters / Post Certification by 30 in 2 years and 70 in 4 years
• Increase Doctorates by 2 in 2 years and 6 in 4 years

There is nothing fixed about the above goals but just a demonstration of how data can be used to inform Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely (SMART) goals for increasing postsecondary information technology completion awards.

Peer Rankings

So how  has Shelby County fared compared to their peer cities in information technology postsecondary completion awards across all levels ? The data can be found below:

Conclusion

Data informed benchmarking to inform SMART goals is fundamental in connected workforce development implementation. In this blog, we used the peer average of info tech postsecondary awards to benchmark Shelby County completion awards to inform goal setting. Hopefully, this process or a similar one will be used to catapult economic and workforce development with a emphasis on increasing information technology completion awards and local wages.

Data Source References

LOSB SOLUTION: Resolve Cloudy Communication with Research Based Connected Workforce Development Plan and Common Language Support

In many ways, the Memphis workforce development system faces the same work that will likely be asked of learners related to their career pathways planning efforts. The work is as follows:

• Where are we ? – Benchmarking / Learner Self Exploration
• Where do we want to go ? – Workforce Goals / Learner Career Exploration
• How do we get there ? – System Planning / Learner Career Planning
• Implement  workforce development plan / Learner pursues career pathway through lifelong learning and employment
• Measure, evaluate and course correct as needed

In this blog, we will bust out a couple of more data sets to help target and expedite ecosystem and employer demand driven workforce development. “Expedite” is key and away from the “long haul” of workforce development implementation that has never worked.

First, let’s define terminology that will help us target occupational groups for promotion as informed by UpSkill901, local ecosystem and employer demand. “Location quotient (LQ)” defines the concentration of a particular occupation or occupation group within a given geographic area compared to the nation.

This targeting methodology, ideally would be folded into a workforce development plan. Again, from the previous blog, fundamentals of any connected workforce development plan and deployment of career pathways consists of “common language” development with 1) a unifying measurable definition for “career readiness” applicable to diverse target audiences  2) employer demand data, 3) occupationally aligned assessments, preferably universally recognized to support economic development efforts, 4) career pathways curriculum alignment and planning, 5) professional development and typically 6) centralized technology to reduce implementation costs.

In addition to LQ to target high need occupational groupings that are ecosystem/employer demanded, we will also reference postsecondary award completion data.

Expediting Benchmarking

In this example case, lets say that we want to expeditiously identify, promote, enroll and graduate (IPEG) more individuals in high need career pathways. High need occupational groups would need to be identified which point to opportunities to accelerate talent development while increasing completion rates.

So how might we identify high need occupational groups? Based on ecosystem/employer demand and coming automation, that might point to the need to identify more learners interested in computer technology, entrepreneurship/business and arts/music entertainment. Computer technology and business occupations serves all industries while music serves the local culture and tourism industry.

But is there a high need for a promotional intervention for these specific occupational groupings? Let’s bust out a data set and see. In the below data set, we can see that that there is a low concentration (LQ) of less than 1.0 when compared to the nation and versus 15 peer cities, in computer, business/finance and entertainment occupational groupings, Memphis ranks 15 or 16 in LQ. And all of these groups pay a good wage.

To that extent, low LQ benchmarks are validated which supports a promotional intervention to increase enrollment in career pathways for the occupational groupings of computer, business/finance and arts/entertainment.

The above benchmarks would point to an opportunity to accelerate talent development while increasing completion rates. Lets bust out another data set. Below is a table that shows how Shelby County completion rates, across award levels, rank versus 15 peers. Low hanging fruit opportunities to increase completion rates can be found in 2 year awards and less while promoting lifelong learning for Bachelors and beyond. The actual and prorated for population peer completions are shown below. Rankings are based on the prorate for population peer average.

Expediting Goal Setting

Here, we are focus on expediting workforce development implementation and not the “long haul” because that does not work. Let’s generate some sample simple, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound (SMART) goals based on the benchmarking in the former sections:

• Increase computer technology postsecondary awards by 200 per year
• Increase business/finance postsecondary awards with a focus on entrepreneurship by 200 per year
• Increase arts, entertainment and media postsecondary awards by 50 per year

The above example SMART goals are not all inclusive of all occupational groupings that might require a promotional intervention. But such goals would be rolled into a workforce development plan.

Expediting Implementation Away from the “Long Haul”

Ultimately, various regularly administered technology based assessment tools, like the one shown above, will probably be implemented to facilitate learner identifcation, promotion, enrollement and graduation (IPEG) in student aligned career pathways. But connected implementation should not wait for the perfect implementation model and should start right away.

For whatever reason, while stating workforce development as the #1 priority to be a “long haul”, implementation never seems to get off the ground in Memphis. Its like everyone, to get started, is waiting for a pageantry event kickoff and perfect plan that will never exist.

The way to get started, right away, is to formally distribute, via whatever means, data and talking points to educational and workforce development practitioners so that they can begin integrating career pathways content into their instructional thinking, planning and practice and having collaborative conversations. In the report Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works, McKinsey says to “Get the information out”. The implementation will evolve from those conversations once the data and information is distributed to the public.

Optimal implementation will take time in the implementation of programming, but  should not wait until everything is perfectly ready to go. For example, getting standards aligned career pathways curriculum implemented into the curriculum will not be overnight. Such curriculum will facilitate the implementation of IPEG which will allow practitioners and stakeholders to identify students through a range of assessments for promotion into specific career pathways enrollment aligned to learners’ interests, preferences and skills.

Conclusion

In this blog, in a sample case, we have used a labor market information methodology to benchmark where we are with respect to postsecondary completions and high need occupational groupings that need promotional intervention and where we want to go in the form of SMART goals that would be folded into an ever evolving and imperfect connected plan.

There are certain foundational tenants and organizing principles that need to be introduced right away that are not going to change related to the work of connected workforce development. Examples include:

• Benchmark, Goals, Plan and Implement
• Data, Assessment and Career Pathways Curriculum
• Identify, Promote, Enroll and Graduate (IPEG)

But the above will be ongoing and its never going to be perfect. As emphasized, in the blog about a year ago, don’t talk about the “long haul”, Go and get started !

After my most last blog, a local personality emailed me stating that in the UpSkill901 Education Pillar session we both attended, there appeared to be cloudy communication disconnects between community stakeholders from diverse professional backgrounds.  Additionally, the personality was looking for a data source to track post-secondary completion progress. In our shared session regarding talent pipeline development, business professionals were communicating in terms of “customer mapping” and educators were communicating in other terms to describe the process of student career navigation which includes self exploration, career exploration and career planning.

The primary need coming out of UpSkill901 was a research based connected workforce development plan with a common language framework to support productive conversations between professionally diverse stakeholders while eliminating silos. While being a net positive for the community, the benefits of the recent UpSkill901 Chamber event were to alert the community of the coming disruption from automation, convening workforce stakeholders and identifying service gaps. Further gaps include the need for local subject matter expertise to critically evaluate instructional technology to avoid pitfalls of the recent past while insuring research based implementation.

The above questions would be answered within a connected research based workforce development plan that facilitates common language development. Again, from the previous blog, fundamentals of any connected workforce development plan and deployment of career pathways consists of “common language” development with 1) a unifying measurable definition for “career readiness” applicable to diverse target audiences  2) employer demand data, 3) occupationally aligned assessments, preferably universally recognized to support economic development efforts, 4) career pathways curriculum alignment and planning, 5) professional development and typically 6) centralized technology to reduce implementation costs.

All of the former elements contribute to common language development which reduce communication disconnects while facilitating productive communication between diverse stakeholders. Its not important that everyone is a subject matter expert (SME) in all things related to workforce development but it is important that SMEs exist somewhere in the system and that all stakeholders are aware of authoritative data supports and research based best practices to support common language, productive communication and implementation of connected employer demand workforce development efforts.

While the local establishment has been incumbent on exporting workforce development programming to out of town entities, implementation has not occurred in the “long haul” of connected workforce development implementation over the past 5 years. This has cost taxpayers an estimated $1B in wages and $30M in deficient recurring tax revenues. All of this has occurred, as LOSBs have been dismissed while formally proposing research based connected solutions on the record and through published blogs.

One of the most efficient ways the establishment can improve lagging small business vitality is by increasing transactional velocity in the system with LOSBs when credible ready to go LOSB solutions are proposed to course correct and solve community problems. Dismissing LOSBs with the ‘long haul” staple, in  “well workforce development is going to be a long haul”, as services effectively go undelivered over 5 years, is a lose-lose prescription for LOSBs, economic development and the community at large while also lowering expectations and accountability for expeditious service delivery. Sadly, Memphis has never really got started with the “long haul” of connected workforce development programming.

And it must be said, that none of the outside entities nor have any of the local workforce development nonprofits proposed the need for a connected workforce development plan or a framework for such a plan over the past 5 years all while LOSBs proposals have been dismissed. Still wonder why small business vitality struggles in Memphis ?

Anyway, the outside think tanks of Brookings and Burning Glass were successful at communicating the upskill need for the coming automation disruption while establishing expectations for lifelong learning. But the data slides presented seemed designed to impress rather than communicate as they were, at least to me, complex and hard to digest while not getting reinforced with a closer view in the breakout sessions. It would seem more simple slides could have been used to answer more foundational questions like 1) How does Shelby County fare versus its peers in educational attainment ? 2) What are and define “soft skills”? and 3) What skills and knowledge are most in demand?

To that extent, this blog will expand on fundamental common language supports that should be included in a connected workforce development plan to help answer those more basic questions.

Common Language Data Supports

While a bit dry, the following is a sampling of authoritative public domain data sources that facilitate common language development and measurement within the workforce development system. In most cases, these sources are foundational and leveraged by third party providers to provide services. For this reason, its important that SMEs exist somewhere in the system to understand how proprietary data interacts with data in the public domain and how computations are performed.

As an example, through subject matter expertise, accountability can be enforced while avoiding computational debacles that contribute to local imbalances such as those computations of Younger and Associates related to inflated EDGE tax revenue projections. See below workforce development data sources and then we will bust out a few use cases to answer those basic questions initially broached:

Occupational Characteristics. The O*NET database content model contains various score requirements for over 800 occupations in relationship to a standardized common language framework of 35 discrete skills, 33 areas of knowledge, 16 work styles, 5 education and training levels, 41 generalized work activities, 57 work contexts and 52 abilities for a total of 239 descriptors. The O*NET data collection effort is administered by Research Triangle Institute in conjunction with the United States Department of Labor and serves as an authoritative source for common language development within the workforce development system. The statistically reliable O*NET database is routinely used as a primary or baseline data source in a vast array of proprietary products. An example use case for ONE*T, from the recent UpSkill901 event, would have been to better define “soft skills” with specific discrete skills from the O*NET subcategory skills of basic, social and resource management skills. The chart at the top of this section uses O*NET as a data source to communicate projected skill demand for all occupations. This same chart can be produced for selected career clusters as well as individual occupations.

Postsecondary Data. Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)- IPEDS forms the institutional sampling framework for other NCES surveys, such as the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty. This data source can help regional consortiums understand regional occupational supply to inform completion rate progress and regional occupational supply/demand studies. These studies help to guide the selection and development of career pathways as well as regional career pathway promotion and program offering. The raw data from IPEDS requires SME compilation as it is not intuitive upon download. See this sampling of downloaded IPEDS data.  ( https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds)

Occupational Wages. Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) – Program produces employment and wage estimates annually for over 800 occupations. These estimates are available for the nation as a whole, for individual States, and for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. National occupational estimates for specific industries are also available. This data helps learners consider wages in career exploration and employers and policymakers understand wage trends to support occupational demand analysis (http://www.bls.gov/oes/).

Occupational Projections. Projections Central (State Occupational Projections) – Projections of occupational employment growth are developed for all States and the nation as a whole. One of the most important uses of projections is to help individuals make informed career decisions. Information on this site allows projected employment growth for an occupation to be compared among States. It also allows projected employment growth among occupations to be compared within one State when accessing state specific sites. The data source further helps regional consortiums access regional projections to understand demand for select career pathways, promotion and offerings to support economic development efforts while helping learners evaluate career choices based on projected openings for a given occupation (http://www.projectionscentral.com/Home/Index ).

Industrial Sector Employment Demand. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) – Program publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers covering 95 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, MSA, state and national levels by industry. This data source can help regional consortiums deploy demand driven industry sector strategies (http://www.bls.gov/cew/).

Career Pathways. Career Pathways is a series of connected education and training strategies and support services that enable individuals to secure industry relevant certification and obtain employment within an occupational area while advancing to higher levels of education and employment. Comprehensive standardized mapping of classification of instructional programs (CIP) codes and O*NET/SOC occupational codes into career clusters and career pathways is provided. This data can help locals relate their program offering to career clusters and occupations -(http://cte.ed.gov/).

The above data can be leveraged and deployed via a centralized technology portal in various forms to facilitate cost effective common language development.

To the extent technology is used, a research based connected workforce development plan provides an architecture for which proprietary tools generally and technology tools exist in an overall connected workforce development system. A research based plan would provide a framework for evaluating proprietary technology tools while subject matter expertise could help facilitate evaluation of technology tools. In this way, technology implementation occurs and scales while delivering services in a timely manner.

Common Language Data Use Cases

Now to some use cases and back to those basic questions: 1) How does Shelby County fare versus its peers in educational attainment ? 2) What are and define specific soft skills ? and 3) What skills and knowledge are most in demand ? See below:

Prorated for population and using IPEDS data, the chart below shows the gap in postsecondary educational attainment awards versus the average of 15 Shelby County peers throughout the country to include Louisville, Indianapolis, Nashville, Tulsa and etc.

Using O*NET as an authoritative data source, the below chart lists discrete soft skills and their definitions

A chart listing of the most in demand skills while using O*NET as a foundational data source. As shown, the most in demand skills are for the most part soft skills, thus the soft skill emphasis. This data would ideally be used to inform the academic and basic skills curriculum for all learners.

A listing of areas of knowledge most in demand by local employers based on projected demand. As one can see, “customer and personal service” should be thematic throughout local curricular experiences as it is most in demand across all occupations. 

The “Long Haul” Tenant and Lowering of Expectations

While the above LOSB suggestions could serve the overall good, the “long haul” tenant is often unfortunately used in local establishment discussions. The “long haul” tends to dash any meaningful expectations in the short term and ultimately results in a lack of accountability as near term milestones are non-existent while lowering expectations and starving out small business with limited resources.

But at any rate, here is a ready to go research base framework to facilitate connected workforce development planning efforts. And then there is also the TIFNI tool, another LOSB innovation,  that addresses a huge local process hole in tax abatement projection accounting…..

The Greater Memphis Chamber convened a meaningful stakeholder conversation with their UpSkill901 workforce  development summit but no connecting workforce development plan emerged from the event. Convening such events takes significant effort, as the Chamber seemed restrained by forces beyond their control, to not have a plan available to them following some 5 years of locally disconnected workforce development efforts. Given those restraints, the Chamber pressed ahead while facilitating efforts to help ignite connected planning and an ongoing conversation around workforce development as economic development.

In the lunch session, Beverly Robertson stated that a plan would be forthcoming from session work and Richard Smith in the closing session buttoned up the conference touting workforce development as the #1 economic development priority, the area’s youthful population advantage as an economic development asset and the need to continue the collaborative workforce development conversation.

The Chamber made the event productive by starting out with a data presentation regarding the forthcoming automation disruption and panel discussions. Breakout sessions followed, smartly segmented into target audiences, where workforce development practitioners shared best practices and challenges in facilitated sessions. Obstructive silos emerged as a chief challenge throughout the day.  Adding credibility to the voiced concern, workforce development practitioner,  Kyla Guyette, Executive Director for Workforce Investment Network (WIN), in the lunch session, remarked after having worked throughout the country, that the local siloed landscape was especially challenging in Memphis unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Further, the need for a centralized technology based workforce development portal emerged as a primary tool need to reduce silos, better align resources, communication, partners and efforts. MemphisWorks, currently in use locally, was mentioned favorably as a potential centralizing technology portal in the morning breakout session while YouScience, an assessment platform being locally piloted, was mentioned in the afternoon session. At this point, there does not appear to be a shortage of choices of available technology.

Beyond the cost of the intellectual property, the primary cost with centralized technology is properly aligning it to funding, learning and employer demand requirements to achieve implementation and optimal use while maintaining and updating content with the support of ongoing professional development and marketing. Potentially housing student records may also emerge as a requirement. While a centralized student instructional delivery portal would be ideal, at the same time, a portal may be more scaled down, while not facilitating student instructional delivery, but providing regional labor market information, professional development, best practice sharing and progress monitoring of local workforce development efforts.

As far as curriculum content, the need for “soft skill” development emerged as a primary need in breakout sessions.  Panelist remarks in the afternoon session stated that employers are better positioned to teach tactical job skills while soft skills are far more challenging for employers, thereby leaning on the workforce development system for developing soft skill competency. Specific soft skills were not specifically defined nor was quantified employer demand data of soft skills or basic foundational skills offered in the morning session.

Next Time Summit, Connecting the Dots, Common Language and Plan

Typically, with the added benefit of a plan, events such as UpSkill90l start with a morning content kick off session. The morning session is followed by an application of the content in breakout sessions. Lunch sessions typically reinforce morning content with a break from meeting content with music or lighthearted comedy. The afternoon sessions focus on implementation opportunities of applied content from the morning sessions with established feedback loops for post event support or optional onsite coaching  for implementation progress monitoring.

The fundamenatals of a connected workforce development and the deployment of career pathways consists of “common language” development with 1) a unifying measurable definition for “career readiness” applicable to diverse target audiences  2) employer demand data, 3) occupationally aligned assessments, preferably universally recognized to support economic development efforts, 4) career pathways curriculum alignment and planning, 5) professional development and typically 6) centralized technology to reduce costs.

In this way “soft skills” and basic foundational skills would be discretely defined based on employer demand data to inform curriculum development and planning efforts in conjunction with technical skills data to inform and define program offering. Typically, the former is supported with a flexible and open research based plan to support more tactical proprietary tools and to defend and support connected workforce development efforts within the standards based regulatory environment.

Conclusion

Given absence of a connected plan restraints, the Greater Memphis Chamber pressed ahead and was successful in convening workforce development practitioners while starting the vital workforce development as economic development conversation. The upcoming career fair will only further local workforce development efforts while providing opportunities for the continued conversation and hopefully moving toward implementing a connected workforce development plan.

An argument can be made for a 8 yr PILOT for Raymond James (RJ) that creates 100 new jobs at $63K and $23M in new capital investment while consolidating operations.

But it must be said, there are no real standards for EDGE PILOTs. Over the weekend there was chatter across social media on pros and cons approving the RJ PILOT. For instance, Tom Jones of Smart City seems to impose the original “but for” requirement for tax incentives which is what it should be !  The “but for” requirement is that “but for” the incentive, the “economic development” project would not occur. Considering “but for”, RJ is likely not going anywhere else making the incentive unnecessary.

At the same time, in practice, “but for” was abandoned pretty much when EDGE was created with the Valero project. Valero practically can’t go anywhere else. Which brings us to the reality that, in practice, “but for” has been  gone as has been reliable projection accounting, for 8 years, while excessive abatements proliferate. The existence of bogus inflated projection accounting has been used to justify excessive corporate/real estate abatements for the benefit of the small few while creating the need for the more accurate Tax Incentive Fiscal Note Impact (TIFNI) tool.

When TIFNI is used on RJ, TIFNI finds a $480K net benefit for taxpayers. This differs greatly than the $2.6M benefit EDGE claims pointing to the need for TIFNI fiscal impact analysis in addition to economic impact analysis. Economic impact analysis alone results in incomplete project accounting. At the same time, when applying TIFNI, of some 95 PILOTs, RJ exceeds the fiscal benefit of some 56 of 95 EDGE Board approved job PILOTs.

So while the return on the RJ project is only 2%, it exceeds the performance of 56 of 95 PILOTs. This data point validates one of the causes of unmet community needs and flat tax revenues due to excessive incentives. A reduction in the RJ PILOT percentage from the standard 75% would yield a greater return on investment for the taxpayer and should be considered.

Conclusion

PILOT reform is long overdue in Memphis where bogus projection accounting has resulted in $500M+ in job incentives compared to $135M in Indianapolis that had greater percentage job growth. Ideally, PILOT reform would include the enforcement of “but for”, fiscal impact analysis and a policy that would right size abatements with 50% on new capital investment provided current job levels are maintained, 1% abatement on total wages of new direct jobs only while maintaining EDGE investment and term minimums.

The only standard there seems to be for an EDGE job PILOT is available vacant space in need of a commercial tenant. At which point, the EDGE Board, if necessary will abate existing taxes to allow a prospective tenant to reach EDGE capital investment minimums that credit the value of existing vacant property as community investment while abating existing taxes. The former is a taxpayer nightmare and would be addressed under the above PILOT reform with the implementation of fiscal impact analysis and TIFNI.

Memphis supports a pageantry of establishment horror. Just yesterday, Benjamin Orgel, Carol Coletta and Gary Prosterman celebrated real estate development as economic development. And soon, another group of establishment players, that botched the workforce development system on the back of a foreign contract award, will celebrate themselves in a pageantry UpSkill901 event featuring the Brookings Institute. Brookings co-authored the last design for decline economic development plan along with Christine Richards, at the time, Chief Counsel of FedEx.

Real estate development as economic development has resulted in excessive corporate/real estate incentives, a botched workforce development system, stifled small business sector, neighborhood decline, people having to hitchhike to work due to deficient public transit and increasing poverty rates. And those at the state level, with some distance from the horror, in for example Gwyn Fisher and Mark White that could perhaps provide a level of state intervention, are inaccessible. They only know decline for Memphis and are comfy with an establishment that has led ecosystem decline over 20 years.

Governor Bill Lee must have no idea that he is participating in a pageantry of horror by appointing Richards to the Public Charter School Commission. He’s just knowingly or unknowingly furthering elitist SPOONERGATE and the nationally embarrassing FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex that has led Memphis decline for 20 yrs.

An Activist 2015 Public UofM Sounds The Alarm

The horror of real estate development as economic development, has not come without warning. About the same time that I began to scratch my head, an activist University of Memphis Planning Department, in 2015, sounded the alarm through a report that seems to indicate they were scratching their head as well.

The report first defines economic development as  “an increase in the economic well-being of area residents, usually manifested by positive changes in the level and distribution of area employment and per capita income.” Then the report connects the dots to communicate what economic development means in Memphis based on local practice. The report concludes that economic development in Memphis based on local practice is defined as “real estate development, consumer-oriented development, large publicly funded projects, and tax breaks”.

The report goes on to question the conflict of FedEx and Christine Richards being so prominent in economic development efforts based on the need to diversify away from the logistics industry and a plan that contained no deliverables or timelines while questioning local workforce development efforts.  It must be noted, in the past year, that FedEx has been the recipient of some $66M in state and local incentives while only promising 339 new jobs. And to make matters worse, the incentives were awarded without an economic impact study.

Not long after the former activist UofM Planning Department raised concerns, I raised concerns with Richards directly concerning local workforce development efforts. My current approach to questioning local economic workforce development efforts often gets questioned. But as one can see, my approach has not always been rhetorically laced but in fact professional as can be seen in this email to Richards in 2016.

Richards is part of an elitist establishment pageantry of horror in the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex. A nightmare community and economic development scenario where local residents are trapped in a rigged system of decline with the support of state and local officials where elitist feel entitled to feed on a community in need while ripping off the taxpayer, small business and botching the workforce development system.

Rigged System and No Course Correction

The Memphis system does not afford data driven course correction. This comes with the support of a non-investigative press and elected officials that are comfy with establishment supported decline. I have spoke briefly to Representative Mark White in passing and he is always nice. But he is unwilling to do formal data supported intake on the nightmare of the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex as is Gwyn Fisher who is the Memphis representative of the Tennessee Economic and Community Development department.

Local officials are completely comfortable with decline as excessive incentives have roared without fiscal impact analysis over 8 years and floundering workforce development initiatives have gone uninvestigated over the last 4 years. The lack of state level intake systems and rigged local government institutionalize Memphis decline. And the new UofM under the new FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow Board of Trustees is no longer an activist public university where objective economic development measurement has been curtailed and bogus economic outlook studies are published.

Conclusion and Solutions

This blog has documented bogus projection accounting for tax incentives resulting in excessive incentives, establishment led botched workforce development efforts and as of late EDGE misusing $1.7M in EDGE/Depot funds that should come back to the taxpayer. But those events, regardless of how well documented, go ignored by the local press and governmental officials. This provides a foundation for systemic decline without course correction as the same establishment players run the city into the ground.

The solutions are simple and NOT complex and include press and legislative oversight, systems of state level intake, objective measurement and fiscal impact analysis of tax incentives that has not occurred in 8 years. Without the former, the economic and community development nightmare and pageantry of horror of the elitist FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex will only continue while furthering ecosystem decline.

Get a handle on tax incentives. Catch an Angle with TIFNI !

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Contact us Today !

901-574-4753 or jkent@pathtrek.net

From: Joe B. Kent <jkent@pathtrek.net>

Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 3:17 PM

To: cprichards@fedex.com

Subject: Sense of Urgency

Ms. Richards,

I would like to meet with you in your role as a GMACW Board Member to discuss the local workforce development effort. I am not interested in meeting with GMACW staff at this time. I have been following the GMACW implementation very closely and feel as if I can add value by providing a specific plan and doing the following: 1) help raise money for youth development 2) provide technical assistance and 3) add a sense of urgency to the effort. From here in Memphis and a graduate of the University of Memphis, I have a Bachelors in Business Administration (Finance Major), Masters of Science in Curriculum, Instruction and Technology and hold a Global Career Development Facilitator Certification where I focused my work on Labor Market Information and Supply and Demand Analysis. My LinkedIn Profile is a follows: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbkent

Having said that, while attempting to consider the job market here in Memphis, I enrolled in MemphisWorks at http://memphisworks.com .  Well, MemphisWorks is Not Working as shown in the below email.  I read the Terms Agreement and it makes reference to “province” instead of “state”. Since Memphis is here in the United States, I thought that I should bring that to someone’s attention. Secondly, I thought you might find this somewhat interesting, later in the document, it states the following “ These Terms and Conditions are governed by, and to be construed and interpreted in accordance with, the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada applicable in that Province. Any action taken in connection with the operation and content of the Site, or these Terms and Conditions, must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Also below and while using the American Public Data System,  I am making a $15,000 in kind contribution to the effort by providing a first pass Memphis Workforce Trends Report. I am tired of seeing my hometown stumble around without a coherent compilation of labor market information 18 months into the project as they grapple with the important topic of workforce and economic development. If you see something that’s not right in the data, please let me know and allow me the opportunity to defend or correct the data. In this way we are at least talking about the data which serves as a way to advance the local effort. At the end of the report, there are 2 Supply and Demand Reports. 1 report is for Job Zone 3 Associates Degrees and above. The other report is for Job Zone 2 or High School Only. Please see below and let me know when we can meet.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and I look forward to hearing back from you.

MemphisWorks Agreement – https://1drv.ms/b/s!AiNXRWm6KZQi3Q34w2R7YK9bZb-9

Memphis Workforce Trend Report – https://1drv.ms/b/s!AiNXRWm6KZQi3RCq4kJ5GrHYyak1

From: Memphisworks [mailto:info@workbay.net] Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 4:25 PM To: jkent@pathtrek.net Subject: Welcome to Memphis Works!

Currently, a massive public accountability process hole exists that prevents informed budget forecasting and evaluation of economic development incentives through more accurate measurement. A centralized web based fiscal impact tool and note generator would provide a solution for improving budget forecasting and return on investment evaluation regarding economic development incentives.

Additionally, the County Trustee’s office has repeatedly called for a centralized integrated database for all incentives from multiple abating boards in their annual report . This convergent need should be leveraged to develop a central repository for tax incentive fiscal notes and impact analysis. The work could be funded with $1.7M in misused EDGE/Depot funds coming online. There could not be a more relevant, needed, appropriate and course correcting investment when it comes to $1.7M in misused EDGE/Depot funds than a tax incentive fiscal impact tool.

Keep in mind, there was a time in Memphis, prior to Memphis Tomorrow, when local small business could propose an innovative solution to a community problem and local leaders would go to work to bring it to market. Yours truly, in the mid 90s, proposed and erected the first web based Shelby County Assessor’s property database.

That was then. Now the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex is busy ripping off local small business ideas and shipping them off to out of town companies like Burning Glass and Talent Pipeline Management so that the workforce development system can be botched over 5 years. That’s what happened with my connected workforce development solution which is the same thing that Burning Glass out of Boston and the like are bringing to market 5 years late in Memphis after the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex dismissed local small business solutions.

The way the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex rips off small business is not overt. What they do, is they try to starve out small business and once they are starved out, the solution reappears somewhere else. For my part, a local research project was launched at the same time I attempted to get my connected workforce development solution to market. Part of my research was to see if they would rip my solution off and yep the hack complex ripped it off which is why Memphis struggles with small business in a closed elitist SPOONERGATE system.

As a typically broke local small Memphis business, this brings me to my latest solution, which is the “Memphis/Shelby Tax Incentive Fiscal Note / Impact Repository (TIFNI).

The Solution

With the Trustee’s office on public record stating the need for a centralized incentive database and Mayor Harris saying a fiscal note for every abatement is a “great idea !” in a meeting on 10/2/19, the Memphis/Shelby Tax Incentive Fiscal Note / Impact Repository should be a slam dunk. And funding should not be an issue with $1.7M in EDGE/Depot funds coming on line.

Further, it would seem the Epicenter would want to get behind bringing local small business solutions to market to solve community problems. And the UofM Fogleman College of Business, under Dr. Damon Fleming, has all types of small business development work underway and a need for accurate local economic development measurement.

Here are the benefits of Memphis/Shelby TIFNI delivered through web based technology:

• Provides return on investment analysis of tax incentives with a fiscal note generated for every tax incentive
• Provides local government, through both economic and fiscal impact analysis with a more reliable methodology for budget forecasting
• Provides a centralized repository for tax incentive information

The availability of such information stands to curtail excessive incentives while informing optimal public economic development investments and more accurate budget forecasting.

Conclusion

The need for Memphis/Shelby TIFNI has been unaddressed for 8 years. With $1.7M of EDGE/Depot funding coming online and existing local small business solutions proposed to solve the outstanding need, there could not be a better time to get started.