The current Coronavirus crisis will demand rigorous public oversight. But oversight of the vast public Memphis Tomorrow public – private complex is effectively non existent. In fact, the Memphis Tomorrow complex used the last economic development crisis to benefit the small few with excessive tax breaks while promising trickle down prosperity through MWBE programming. But the data shows that has not occurred, with in large part, the same long standing established business benefitting from excessive corporate/real estate subsidies.
At the same time, the local social justice movement along with fiscal conservative oversight efforts are caught in the stone age and a time of Fonzie. You never hear a local legislator dig deep into an EDGE compliance report, ask tough questions or raise questions about the lack of transparency of Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) data. Local legislators effectively pay the public-private complex to provide incomplete fairytale testimony while the taxpayer suffers in a majority black Memphis Community in need. Hawkeye Oversight Services has solutions that involve outsourced tool development, rigorous oversight and questioning services of the public private complex.
Local legislators are effectively blinded by stone age tools that prevent effective oversight and legislators are not even calling for better tools. History says that local legislators lack the desire or know how to practice rigorous oversight and its only local oversight in the end that will monitor Federal coronavirus funding.
This blog goes deeper into EDGE MWBE data which points to major concerns regarding local legislative oversight. MWBE is a taxpayer scam.
Hawkeye – Rigorous Oversight and Tools For Economic Rebound
Hawkeye Oversight Services has already proposed the consolidated tax incentive fiscal note impact (TIFNI) platform. Such tools will be needed to facilitate economic recovery. Without TIFNI, legislators don’t even know the total amount of incentives being administered throughout the County or a means to measure economic development efforts. The above data set was compiled using EDGE published compliance reports from 2016-19 and the reports that are published on the webpage for each PILOT.
The most concerning data points from the above is the high WBE and Outside Shelby County spends and low LOSB spends. “Vendor” is for a company that is on local governmental vendor list but not an MWBE or LOSB. It appears PILOT companies are allowed to use vendors on local governmental vendor lists for MWBE spend. These fall into the “Vendor” category when no MWBE or LOSB designation is found.
With local social justice and fiscal conservative efforts caught in the stone age, Hawkeye is now the first to deploy a methodology for consolidated MWBE measurement to serve both social justice advocates and fiscal conservatives. Again, the concern is the lack of oversight tools and culture with a looming Coronavirus economic crisis.
With a significant investment in MWBE, a consolidated MWBE platform would provide legislators or designated Hawkeye questioner with the tools to ask the following questions that are never asked in oversight proceedings:
Why is WBE so high ? Real Answer: So that the same established local companies can benefit
Why is Outside of Shelby County spend so high at $25M ? Real Answer: Because the elitist Memphis culture dismisses small businesses. This is why my small business was shut out from providing connected workforce development programming and now its showing up in the data
Why is LOSB so low ? Real Answer: Because MMBC represents only Stage II established businesses to corporations while Epicenter only helps startups and smaller businesses with business planning while they go unrepresented running the risk of closing down through a lack of receipts. Bad ecosystem design.
Why is BDO USA, a New York Corporation, showing up in MWBE spend data. Real Answer: Because there is no oversight.
Why don’t abating boards, other than EDGE, publish compliance reports? Real Answer: Because there is no oversight
Anyway, due to a lack of tools and oversight culture, these questions don’t happen with social justice and fiscal conservatism efforts caught in the stone age while subservient to the archaic and elitist Memphis Tomorrow complex.
Conclusion
The only oversight that will work in the coming economic crisis is local oversight. This blog has used data from the MWBE program to show that local oversight is non-existent dooming taxpayer advocacy in a Memphis community in need….