Posts
Surprise, surprise, another company takes your taxpayer and fails to create jobs they promised.
Four years ago, the Iowa Department of Economic Development awarded a company in northwest Iowa a forgivable loan worth nearly three-million dollars. The deal with Wells' Dairy was designed to keep the company's corporate headquarters located in LeMars. IDED spokesperson Stephanie Bjornson says Wells' Dairy pledged to create or retain hundreds of jobs. "We asked them to create 129 jobs while retaining 346," Bjornson said. The deadline to create those jobs is coming up next month, on June 11. "It appears as though, at this point, that they haven't created any net new jobs," Bjornson said.Corporate welfare doesn't benefit anyone except corporations that get your taxpayer money.
2 comments:
Seems to me this shows that mandated job creation is a silly metric to impose on economic development. It is too difficult to predict how market forces will impact a business three or more years out.
There isn't much public data on why exactly Wells failed to produce the jobs it was required to create. Looking at the rising cost of milk and transportation over the past few years, however, does offer some possibile reasons. Likewise, it is at least possible that Wells would have laid off workers or left the State entirely absent the state grant. We just don't know the facts to point fingers at this point.
I'm not excusing Wells, merely saying that companies are no more immune from defaulting on their economic development "mortgage" then anyone else.
This is one of the biggest reasons why Culver is an improvement over Vilsack. The Values Fund approach to "economic development" benefits very few at the expense of everyone else.
Post a Comment