Three weeks after Amazon announced it would back out of plans to build a second headquarters in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are still lobbying to woo the company back in hopes of getting the 25,000 jobs and billions in community investment that it promised. But there's no guarantee a company will deliver on its job promise in the first place. In fact, new research shows that it's not rare for companies to end up lowering their job targets after inking a tax incentives deal with the state. Most recently, global electronics maker Foxconn announced that it likely won't meet the job target for a manufacturing plant in Racine County, Wis. With Amazon Out of New York, Some Lawmakers Seek Multistate Ban on Corporate Tax Breaks Despite New Rules to Disclose Corporate Tax Breaks, Just Half of Local Governments Are States With the Strongest Job Growth in 2018 Amazon HQ2 Was an 'Unfortunate Distraction' From 'Needy Communities' Foxconn's voluntary announcement is an anomaly, though. More often than not, these broken promises aren't made public. In some cases, they're broken after the incentives are already given out. It's difficult to determine how common such changes are because they're usually only revealed in audits. But a new University of Texas at Austin study on the transparency of economic development shows how common they are.
Governing
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is refusing to release a letter written to him by former Gov. Scott Walker just before he left office in January, saying that because it was personal it is not subject to the state's open records law. Evers should be ashamed of himself for not releasing the letter, said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council on Monday. "If this is how he intends to conduct himself in regard to the state's open records law, he is going to have a rough time," Lueders said. Walker, a Republican, revealed to The Associated Press in a Jan. 4 interview, just three days before he left office, that he had written the letter and left it for Evers, a Democrat. The AP filed an open records request with Evers for the letter on Jan. 11, one week into his term as governor.
WTMJ
|
|