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.