To get the most out of the economic development program, elected officials need to be educated about and notified when companies submit ITEP requests.
That’s according to Scott Martinez, president of the North Louisiana Economic Partnership, who spoke today at the Statewide Economic Development Summit hosted by BRAC. Martinez says the partnership, which focuses on communicating with local officials, provides local governments in the northern part of the state with a more thorough cost benefit analysis of any ITEP requests.
Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator gave the first-ever denial of a request in early 2018, following the 2016 executive order by Gov. John Bel Edwards allowing local taxing authorities to deny ITEP requests.
“Having that education in place and showing people the value of these requests, it makes a difference,” Martinez says. “ITEP is a good process. A lot of the investment that’s happened over the last few decades wouldn’t have happened without the ITEP.”
In St. James Parish, officials are also working to better evaluate the ITEP requests they consider. Steven Nosacka, mayor of Gramercy, says they’ve created a parish stakeholder group that includes the president of the school board, sheriff, parish council chairman and the parish assessor, among others.
Forming such a group allows those involved to have more time with company representatives, Nosacka says, ensuring they might better understand a project’s impact.
The wishlist for the parish is simple, Nosacka says, when it comes to ITEP requests. The parish wants jobs for local residents and increased opportunities for the St. James Parish business community to do work with industry.
“St. James Parish has a measured excitement for industrial growth,” Nosacka says. “We really think in St. James Parish that the new ITEP rules strike a better balance than what we had previously and gives the state more consistency, and of course that’s what’s needed.”
Martinez says the state would also benefit from ending comparisons of its ITEP practices to Texas. Louisiana’s westward neighbor boasts 254 counties with economic development policies that are spearheaded locally. Those counties are afforded powers that Louisiana does not have in its constitution, he says.
“I worked in Texas most of my career and it’s totally different, comparing apples and oranges to the way economic development happens in Louisiana and the way its done in Texas,“ Martinez says. “It’s not a fair comparison.”
