- Hello and welcome.
I am very happy to introduce myself.
I'm Amy Greil with the UW-Extension,
the University of Wisconsin-Extension
located here in Kenosha County,
and I'm very pleased to offer a program tonight called
Economic Development 101 in collaboration with the
Wisconsin Economic Development Association.
It's my great pleasure also to introduce you
to our trainer tonight, Brian Doudna,
who comes with 25 years in economic development.
He's had a range of experiences with downtown development,
workforce development,
and also worked in a county-wide capacity
in economic development.
Currently, he serves as the economic dev--
or the executive director of the
Wisconsin Economic Development Association,
and he's actually the first full-time
executive director of the organization.
So it's a pleasure to welcome him, and I thank you
for working with us tonight.
- Thank you. (audience applauds)
Thank you.
Thank you, Amy, and today is gonna be interesting
so that we can get a good introduction
of what economic development is.
It's an ever-evolving field.
And so what we wanna do is make sure
that you truly understand the broad-base scope
of economic development.
But first, about our association,
we represent 400 members
of economic development professionals across the state.
Many of them are the local individuals
that are making deals happen at your level
in the communities, but also could be engineering groups
or working with financial institutions
to make projects move forward.
We operate three educational programs on an annual basis.
One is in the spring, focused in on financing.
Second one is in the fall,
focused in on economic development tools,
just to make sure that we always keep bringing
best practices into the state.
And the third is the Governor's Conference,
and that's in February and where we bring in speakers
from across the country to really talk about
emerging trends in the field of economic development
so that we truly make sure that our local officials,
our local professionals are well-versed
in what's happening in the local economy
but also the global economy
and how we relate that
in the state of Wisconsin.
We definitely work on legislative advocacy,
making sure that our economic development professionals
know the tools that are available to 'em
but also have tools that are flexible
so that we can make projects
move forward in their local regions.
We do provide direct services, and that's really
to make sure that our professionals have the tools,
resources to make their jobs easier
so that they don't lose opportunities to grow the economy
because they don't have access to something.
And then local official education,
similar to what we're doing tonight,
making sure that we're informing the public
but also making sure that the local officials know
how economic development works,
and if they have questions,
they have a resource to come to in the state association.
So we are a non-profit organization.
All right, economic development 101 for local leaders,
that is a four-hour session where we do deep dives
into each of the different sections
of economic development.
Today, you'll just hear excerpts of that
that is condensed.
But what we wanna do is make sure that we take it
to the local communities so that if you want to have
this presentation and a deep dive done in your community,
feel free to follow up with
the economic development association.
My background, as Amy mentioned,
I have 20 years of experience but have run urban
and rural economic development organizations,
from Northern Wisconsin up in Rhinelander
to Eau Claire to having worked in the La Crosse market
to Central Wisconsin.
So I'm familiar with agriculture too
and the forestry industry,
all the way to downtown development.
One of my passions is always trying
to maximize the opportunities,
and I think most of the people in the field
of economic development truly want to help people
advance their community but also help advance dreams.
So from my perspective, my passion is about
advancing early-stage opportunities, early-stage ideas.
So in the last few years in the Eau Claire market,
I was able to help people with product ideas
and gain around 3.5 million in equity investment
to launch their products to market.
Economic development professionals are about
advancing the economy, advancing dreams.
But now the definition for the general public,
what is economic development?
It means something different in every community,
But it truly is sustained concerted actions
of policymakers of a community that promote
a standard of living and economic health
of the specific area.
Depending on if you're working with the schools,
the local governments,
or if you're in the private sector,
economic development might mean
a slightly different thing,
but this is really the standard that we go
as economic development professionals.
But when would you ever call one of us?
And that's, I think, the biggest challenge
for the people in our field,
is economic development is evolving
and it's, in each community,
it's got a different definition.
But for my purposes,
and I think across the state,
is if you're in the general public and have a product idea
or you're thinking about launching
a new product as a company,
or if you're a business that is trying
to look at a new division, that's when you would call
an economic development professional,
making sure that if you are trying to grow
but you're land-locked,
that's when you would call us.
The reality for economic development organizations
and professionals, it's a different day every single day.
Your tasks are different.
But after you have a few years of experience,
you are experts.
Because for a business that expands once,
maybe twice in their history,
economic developers do that on an annual basis.
So from a growth strategy,
from a management of a project
to helping advance a new product line
or launch a new product line,
economic development professionals are gaining
that experience on every single project,
and we wanna use those talents to advance yours.
So as a general public, make sure that you reach out
when you have questions about how you can maximize
your personal opportunities.
But economic development, on the slide here,
you can see economic development
and then community development.
There are many different aspects of this.
I guess in Northern Wisconsin,
when I was working up there,
tourism, the forest industry was critical to that market.
That was their definition.
But as part of that, core activities of business expansion,
business attraction were also part of it.
In today's world of people choosing where to live
before they choose a career,
community development and retention of talent
is even more critical on a daily basis.
So how we advance the housing,
the cool places that people go
that you enjoy, as in your community,
how do we make more of those in your community
so that you're successful in community development,
which will translate to be more successful
in economic development,
whatever you define that as a community.
And words that really define
what's your best opportunities for growth,
you really need to create
a local economic development plan.
And here are the four aspects that we really promote,
but truly understand what your assets are.
So if you're in a Northern Wisconsin
and you have the lakes and you have the timber,
that's why the timber industry,
wood products industry is critical up there.
But if you're in a rural community,
that you're a bedroom community potentially,
what are the unique aspects that you have
that will want housing development to occur there?
So everyone has an opportunity for economic growth.
It's really truly understanding your assets
and then figuring out how to maximize them.
So leverage assets, value proposition,
so why your community rather than the community
20 miles down the road?
And if it says, if your answer is,
"Because we have a better quality of life",
define that.
Everybody will say they have a great quality of life,
but define it.
Make it tangible.
Align resources,
making sure that you have the capacity to...
if you implement it, make sure it's sustainable
and that you have the people, resources,
capacity to make things happen
and deploy 'em strategically.
That's why the value proposition at the very beginning
is what's your core values,
how are you gonna advance it,
and how are you going to employ resources?
The worst thing that can happen in economic development
is you get local officials and local people
excited about an opportunity, but it doesn't have
the right value proposition
and it's not the right strategy.
So it's truly a process that strategic planning
takes place, but community engagement takes place.
Economic development is not done in a silo.
It has to be something that you engage people
and facilitate the process to make sure
that initiatives are gonna occur
in a timely and sustainable manner.
And the final thing is
measure what you're wanting to accomplish.
So if it's just having a physical location,
community place to go, that's fine.
But what's the...
how many people do you want to...
how many events do you wanna have happen there?
What's gonna make it vital part of your community?
Economic development, community development
is all one and the same.
So how do we grow your community, your opportunities
and make sure that it's a vital part of other...
spurring other activities?
Tonight, we'll talk about economic development strategies.
On the left-hand side, you'll see
Business Retention & Expansion, Attraction.
Of course, business attraction is
what you always read in the headlines.
But I wanna stress right now,
that is a very small part of what we do
in economic development,
Entrepreneurship, Start-Ups, Workforce Development,
Community Development as well.
You'll notice the Tactics and Tools and Issues
available to 'em.
So in Entrepreneurship,
when you look at a Business Incubator,
that is a model that has been around for many...
three to four decades.
Now you're starting to see something
that's with Accelerators and Lean Start-Up models.
We'll talk about Lean Start-Up.
But what we wanna show is you have tactics
on how to advance that.
And we'll go into depth if you have this
as a ED-101 in your community.
We'll go into depth on each of those
on how you can make those things happen in your community.
The tools?
Making sure that you know that you're not
having to create everything to make it happen
in your community,
but then also the challenges or the issues of
as you advance each of those initiatives.
But most importantly, from my perspective, is
we have a lot of organizations
that are focused in
on growing the economy,
but many times, we don't work together.
So collaboration and advancing strategic partnerships
is critical for successful economic development.
Unifying delivery systems,
you'll see that we have many partners,
but unifying delivery systems to eliminate silos.
So whether you're at the city level, county level,
town level, you're all one economy.
So how do you make sure you grow that economy?
Embrace innovation development,
engage private sector leadership.
Again, local officials, elected officials are critical
to economic development and community development.
But without the private sector investing in your strategies
and being partner and having a voice in those,
you will be less successful.
Asset-based strategies,
truly what's unique about your community,
and then finally, strengthen the talent pool.
Everybody will say they have available labor,
or they are working with a tech college to customize that.
But make sure that you understand the talent pool
that you're generating in your community, in your colleges
so that you're aligning your companies
and their workforce needs with the long-term capacity
to grow those skill sets in the community.
Our partners, economic development partners,
public/private non-profits,
there's many of 'em.
From chambers of commerce,
the public/private partner non-profits,
they are the ones that are typically facilitating
the deals, making sure they...
that are implementation-oriented.
Local governments and regional planning commissions,
some of the local governments are also
implementation-oriented with dedicated staff.
Regional planning commissions are typically
planning commissions that have over-arching roles
and responsibilities to make sure that if you're doing
one activity in one community, that it matches up
with a master plan for that region.
Redevelopment corporations, that's in different communities
where they actually are dedicated
to redevelopment funding models and strategies,
making contaminated sites or blighted sites
be removed and repurposed.
Educational institution,
workforce development organizations,
and small business development,
all three are critical to being successful
in economic development.
Without talent, workforce, human capital,
you're not gonna be successful.
Small business development centers,
they are critical to making sure that,
if you're working with early-stage companies,
that they have the capacity, the plans in place,
and financial projections in place
to be successful in getting lending.
Economic developers, one thing I wanna stress,
are not gonna write a business plan for somebody.
They will facilitate the process and making sure
that you get the resources to make sure
that you're gonna be prepared to go
to a financial institution.
And there's many others that can help
with economic development.
The challenge for economic development at the local level,
however, is many of those partners are funded
by the same people and by the same organizations.
So while we want to align activities,
there is a common challenge of who gets credit
for what project and all of that.
In the big picture,
it's a win in every community
when a company expands
and community development activities occur
and are successful.
But behind the scenes, for the public's purpose,
you need to realize that
an economic development organization
or a chamber of commerce
or a local economic development office of a city
are getting similar funding models in place.
So taking some credit but aligning and working together
is a challenge, but it's critical to be...
for a long-term success
of economic development in your community.
So politics, unfortunately, is part of the field
of economic development, but it's all about
how we can grow the economy.
Measuring, we wanna make sure that there's a purpose,
process, and output and outcomes.
And there's various techniques to doing that,
but for our purposes today, we're just gonna give you
some sample measurements about payroll, tax base,
and the measurements that you might choose
in your community could also be workforce training,
that you've helped receive workforce training dollars
to help a company grow.
For the State of Wisconsin, their interest
just from a budgeting standpoint
would be payroll taxes, income taxes.
So having companies that grow and having more employees
paying payroll taxes, that's good because
that's bringing in revenues to the state.
As far as for local municipalities,
from their measurements, they would like tax-base growth,
or a commercial development, but if you're a county,
you want that sales tax revenue coming into your location.
So location of projects occur and matter,
but what measurement is appropriate for your community,
you have to realize what your partners are
and how the deal is gonna be put together.
But these are common measurements for consideration.
But I think it's most critical that
whatever measurements you develop,
that you communicate to the community.
Economic development is about being accountable
for the taxpayer dollar,
but also transparent in how those dollars are being spent,
and reporting out to make sure that the general public
truly understands how the dollars
are advancing their economy.
So in the big picture here, this is an example
from Washington County, but in the big picture here is
how are you gonna measure that and communicate that
in your marketplace?
Because at the end of the day, you have to communicate
results to the taxpayers and the general public
on how the dollars were spent.
Business retention and expansion,
one of the core features, and I would say
where most communities should spend the majority
of their economic development time,
organizational capacity.
We have companies that are operating in your community
today that need to be your priority.
Without them, your existing economy will see a downturn,
so making them as strong as possible is critical.
So let's start with them,
and as they grow,
hopefully there will be new opportunities
to work with them in other capacities.
So one of the things that we recommend is that
you should be meeting with employers in your community.
And it probably depends on the size of your community,
but I'll just say in the last county I was in,
in Eau Claire, it was any employer over 20
was pretty much a face-to-face visit.
But then we also had electronic surveys
where we could touch base,
and if there was any of these bullet points that came up
as they're land-locked or there's an ownership change
or their lease is expiring,
that was a reason for a site visit.
Okay?
So in your community, depending on your capacity
for economic development staff,
you can also use the electronic tools
to get to your businesses
and make sure that you're touching base with them.
The one thing that I would say for local officials,
it's you might not be an expert in economic development,
but how you get to them and make sure you get feedback
so there's open line of communication is critical
for long-term success.
But when you're seeing a relocation of top management
or a change in suppliers
or a new facility being expanded
as state of the art equipment at a different location
outside your local area,
you should be trying to come up with strategies
to address any concerns that they might have.
So, core goals, baseline understanding of the business.
So I know that's a lot of businesses in some markets,
but you need to understand if it's family-owned,
what's the interest in the next generation,
or is there a next generation to pass that off to?
That is part of economic development.
It's not that business's sole issue.
It's critical for their long-term success,
but it's critical for you in your community
to make sure that you're aware of that situation
and helping them come up with strategies to address it.
So forge outcome-oriented service,
so again, succession planning,
if there isn't a plan of action in place
or they don't have a strategy in place,
you can't force someone to go through that process,
but you need to have, as a community resident
and having an interest in advancing the community,
I think that's a fair question to say,
"What's the next steps within your company
"for the next generation?"
if they're nearing retirement,
if the ownership is nearing retirement.
So business visitation program's critical.
That's gonna lead to new development.
So if they have a supplier network, you never know
when the suppliers need to be closer to them.
So if you have a manufacturing operation
or a retail supply company
that many of their suppliers have to be close to 'em
to service that client.
So making sure that you truly understand the dynamics
of each of those businesses help you grow your economy.
Now, entrepreneurship...
definitely has changed over the last decade
as far as ability to launch companies.
With technology today, everybody can be an entrepreneur.
Even if you don't understand the technology entirely,
talk to your friends, talk to your relatives,
the younger generation.
Help them allow you to convert your idea
or thought process into an app or something of that nature.
You don't have to be the technology person.
It's critical, though, that you have a solid idea
and have the ability to take it to market, okay?
Again, the key thing for an entrepreneur is knowing
where they need strategic partnerships,
and where they have young talent or eager talent
willing to help advance that model.
An idea is never a straight line to becoming a business.
I used to run a program called The Idea Challenge,
and I will tell this story just because it's one
that I'm proud of, but first meeting,
the gentleman comes in with a napkin
from a local restaurant with a drawing and saying,
"Here's my idea."
I said, "So can you make it?"
Of course, he was able to make it.
He comes back a week later with the made product
and actually has several examples of it.
And I could actually see value in that,
and so we started scheduling appointments
with consultants, with architects.
It was in the construction materials.
And after a few conversations with those individuals,
there was refinement to that product.
And then, we were saying, "You know what?
"We think we need to get some good prototypes."
So we got some early-stage grant funding,
which was unique to our community,
which we, as an economic development strategy,
we created that.
Typically, there are not grants for those activities,
but that's where your strategy of developing your assets,
we decided that's how we wanted to spend dollars.
So they received a grant to do some patent work,
so we helped them get patent work.
And within nine months, he was in the marketplace
because we also found an equity investor
that was able to be bankable.
So that company went from napkin from a local restaurant
to being in the market, nine months.
That is unique.
But that's how dreams can become reality.
Because his comment was,
"I don't wanna be the...
"I wanna own 51% of the company,
"but I don't wanna manage people
"because I wanna be their friends.
"I wanna be in charge of product production,
"and I don't wanna be in the office
"because I like working with my hands."
So again, entrepreneurship can be for everyone.
It doesn't have to be wearing a suit.
It's truly valuable idea with good market potential
and letting people help you along the way.
And that's really the role of economic development
professionals and also small business development center,
is to help you truly understand the opportunity
and understanding how to advance it.
A tool that has come out over the last decade,
instead of forcing people to write a business plan
and go to classes to write a business plan,
which then made the person that was working in the garage
or likes working with their hand
having to write on a computer,
that was frightening,
for lack of a better term.
And it really, many times, stopped the process right there.
So what we're proposing and trying to help
communicate across the state
is something called the Lean Start Up Canvas.
And it really is a value proposition,
customer segments...
you can see the numbers here, but value proposition,
customer segment channels, and revenue streams.
Before you create a company, we wanna make sure
that you have customer validation
that they're gonna buy that widget.
And what are the features they want on the widget?
Not all of the features you have in your mind.
What's the lowest cost opportunity to get it to market
to have it be a sellable product that will get
the greatest return on investment?
The next phase of your project 2.0
will show the next value proposition
that you probably already have in mind, but again,
let's get revenue flowing first and making sure
that the business model works, and then you can get
into the next features of your product, okay?
But UW Extension very definitely helps
with Lean Start Up Canvases.
This is a unique skill set,
but I think the key thing for you to do
is go into your local economic development office
and make sure that you're having them help walk through
the common questions on how to start a company
and talk about the product,
not how to start a company,
but talk about your product and your idea.
Make sure that if you think it's patentable,
that you get a non-disclosure,
and you get yourself protected.
You can go through the patent process pretty rapidly,
as far as just getting a provisional patent
to protect your idea.
And that would be one of the first things,
after you're talking to the executive director
or of the economic development group,
is to make sure that you're protecting your idea.
That should be one of the first things
they're asking about, is, "Is this patentable?"
and "Have we done a patent search?"
Business attraction...
This always gets the headlines, and we spend a lot of time
on this because it's always good
to bring in new opportunities
but truly...
in the entire nation of the U.S.,
maybe between 250 to 450 expansion projects...
in a year.
So your community is spending a lot of time and money
and resources on business attraction.
While it's important and it's great to get those wins,
just truly realize the number of projects there are
and the number of communities there are.
So not every community is gonna win a project
every single year.
But you need to have your best foot forward
and make sure that you're prepared for the opportunities
once they present themselves.
Business attraction
has a lot of different players in it.
It could be developers, investors,
architects and engineers,
property managers and tenants.
It's truly important to understand
that not all property or projects
that are for coming into a community...
they don't necessarily want to own their building.
So having the economic development organization
truly understand who the developers are
that would do a lease-back,
those are things that,
as a business development strategy,
business attraction strategy,
you should have those conversations and make sure
you're prepared to advance those opportunities
if you get that opportunity coming across your desk
or over your phone
or via text or Twitter.
That won't happen, but--
We wanna make sure you're well-prepared.
So the process that we'll go through now
is really making sure, for the general public,
you understand how these processes happen
and the amount of work that goes into 'em
in a very short period of time with knowing that,
again, at the end of the day,
the opportunity for wins is...
if you're getting contacted,
hopefully you're down to the final five communities,
because many times now,
that with the electronics and database searches out there
and data out there,
companies are already narrowing it down
to where they think they'll be able
to operate successfully.
This is called a Site Selection Process.
Typically, there are real estate brokers involved
or national site consultants
or international site consultants.
They will reach out to the community,
that would be the lead,
and on day one, that's when that lead comes in.
But very often, you need to respond to that lead
within three to five days.
And any more, it could be less than three days.
And that's with site location,
all the information that you need for a labor force,
all the utility information.
So most of this prep work has to be done and packaged
so that you're inserting it
and customizing it for the customer.
Critical here, you have to customize your information
on every project.
Because what's the decision points and driving points,
you need to try to interpret their RFP or their inquiry
and truly understand what's gonna be
the driving points for decision-making.
So definition,
we wanna define the product, project,
and make sure that we truly know
what's gonna drive site selection.
The hurdles, there's always hurdles.
That could be timing of zoning.
They need to be in the ground in 120 days,
and they don't have their plans done yet.
They need all this engineering.
How would the community work with them
on the approval process?
Are they able to get everything they need done
in that time-frame?
Hurdles could be financing.
Do you have the infrastructure?
Then you have the negotiation, closing...
negotiation,
I should probably cover that
because that's a long process sometimes.
But that's where the community has to say,
"What's the value of that opportunity
"locating in our community?"
Hopefully, you will have measurements on revenues
coming into the community, things of that nature,
and you'll actually be able to say,
"We can make certain investments
"to make this project work."
Closing and closed is being that the project
has already occurred.
Many times, I would say that's 75 days,
but also economic development projects start in...
let's just give an example...
starts in 2013.
You work the entire deal.
You thought it was gonna happen.
They table it.
Amazingly, a year and half later, it comes back.
So economic development
is tied to the global economy
as well as local economy.
So once you're working on a project with the company,
reach out to 'em again
because you never know when that project might come back,
because there might have been something happening...
if it's a large corporation,
it might have had something happening overseas
that they needed to have that investment made there
and then in this next budget year,
they're gonna be able to do the project
here in your community.
And on the left-hand side,
when we talk about the Administrator,
that administrator is typically the local official.
It could be the mayor or the city administrator,
county executive, but also in partnership with the EDC,
making sure that we're
working with the community
to make things appropriate
and making good decisions using public dollars.
It could also be the local city
economic development professional as well.
Committees?
It could be going to many committees,
going from planning and zoning
to the finance, depending if there's anything
related to finance,
but ultimately, it goes to the city council,
village board, town board for approval
of the overall negotiated developers agreement.
I wanna stress that it is important, from my perspective,
that all communities,
when they have a project moving forward,
that you have a developer's agreement
stating expectations, truly outlining them
from your community standpoint.
If you're doing anything with...
relying on tax base, making sure that you put
a valuation in there,
trying to at least anticipate
what the revenues are and hopefully
what the job creation payroll numbers might be.
So, Real Estate Development, real quickly,
phase one is really on the site selection process.
Phase two is when you're working with them,
it's kind of the negotiations,
saying, making sure that you,
as a community, will have a financial return on this.
Economic development is about growing the economy,
but it's not to give away the farm.
It's about making sure that you're making
strategic investments to grow your economy,
grow your community,
and making sure that you're gonna have the talent pool
to achieve the outcomes so that you get a win
on the real estate taxes.
But because of these other things,
you're probably gonna get another win
because housing development might occur,
and there will be other activities occurring.
Phase three would be Site and Engineering Analysis.
So before a company will actually sign on the dotted line,
they're gonna wanna make sure
that they have access to the property.
How are they going to get trucks in and out?
Are there hours of operation that they have to be
concerned about because of the neighborhood
that they might be locating in?
All of those types of things come out
in phase three of the development process.
Financing,
the private sector is always the lead financing arm
for economic development for private sector development.
Government funding does come in, though,
when we need to extend public infrastructure
or if there is gap financing needed.
So what we mean by gap financing
is that the private sector with the banking industry
are able to do so much
because of lending limits at that financial institution
that the company has a relationship with.
That might not be enough to do
or buy all the equipment they need
to help meet the demand
of that new product line they're expanding to
or adding on.
So public financing, there's your revolving loan funds
and other programs to help fill that gap
to make sure that the company can grow the company,
maximize their opportunity, create the jobs,
while also investing
in what they need to make the project go forward.
Many times, there is not a need
for public sector financing,
but communities have to make sure
that they have the capacity or capability
of doing gap financing in case.
Again, economic development is sometimes
a process of elimination.
So if a company comes to your community
and says, "Well, I need rail.
"Oh, and I need a loan
"to help buy equipment of X,"
you need to make sure that you have a rail spur
or have access to it or figure out how to do it
and that you have the ability
to potentially have gap financing.
Structuring of the Deal...
I would just say, for the general public,
there's a lot of programs out there,
and all of them have the fine print of
"Meant to be used, eligible uses, this way.
"But here's the caveats that you need to be aware of
"that we won't participate in.
That's where the economic development professional
in your community earns their keep,
because they have to try figure out how to make
all of these programs work together
so that the company and who's doing the project
truly gets a seamless service.
So from financing to getting the sewer and water extended,
the company just wants to know...
As I always phrase it,
they're focused in on their bottom line in their business
and growing jobs and growing the market share.
Economic development professionals
and the communities have to deal with facilitating,
getting all the deliverables,
sewer, water, road, rail, whatever that might be...
it could be T-1 lines,
whatever it is that's critical to their business
to their site.
And we use the Sources and Use example here
because we could get that from the State of Wisconsin.
We could get that from a federal agency.
You could get that from a bank, in many cases.
But is there a role for the county or the city
to help fund different projects?
The one thing that I'll mention, because we don't cover
workforce development in the rest of the presentation,
under training, there is a new program
in the State of Wisconsin that, I think,
is working very well
called Wisconsin Fast Forward.
And it's really customized labor training for the company
when they have a project
and are gonna be hiring people.
It's not,
"Here's training dollars
"and hope you hire people."
It's "Training dollars,
"okay, we'll give you that.
"Tell me who you're hiring and what you're paying
"and what their pay will be after the training."
That's where you make strategic investments
in labor training, and the state's making that,
and you're seeing great outcomes because of it.
The Public Sector Roles...
Most of the time,
if it's an existing property,
the municipality, the economic developer
is in a facilitation role,
making sure that we're protecting the public
from a regulatory standpoint,
for hours of operation or whatever that might include,
but also making sure infrastructure, streetscapes,
all those other things are in place.
And gap financing, in many cases,
is part of that package.
Initiator Role, that is used less often,
but can be for critically important sites.
I would just say this could be
a former manufacturing plant that has gone dark
that is in the center of their community.
How do you re-develop that?
So initiator role is the municipality
could create a redevelopment authority
or other authorities to assemble land,
put an RFP out to try to get the right type of development.
Because as part of the community engagement process,
they know that they need more mixed-use developments
where you have commercial and residential in one location,
and they want a nice place-making spot
where it's some place that people can gather.
Those are the types of things that, as a community,
you have a vision and you want to achieve that outcome.
That's your measurable outcome.
So as an initiator of that process,
a community can help set their destination.
Tools to Secure a Deal...
This is, for the general public, I'll just say,
it's alphabet soup
because you'll hear CBBG, you'll hear RLF,
you'll hear T.
The reality is that it's confusing
for most people in the field,
and it takes a while to learn the different programs.
But I'll just say there is a lot of programs out there.
And you have to look at each project
on a case-by-case basis to make sure you're leveraging
the right resources for the right reasons
and that you want to use
the limited resources you have on that project.
One of the best tools that economic development
professionals have and communities have
is something called Tax Incremental Financing.
And this is something that,
typically, there's gonna be real estate investment made,
and it's something that
a community gets together around saying
this is the right appropriate use
of public dollars.
So in that Tax Incremental Financing,
you have the traditional...
on the chart you'll see City Levy,
County Levy, Technical College Levy,
and School District Levy,
and you'll see where the baseline is
for that area.
When a TIF district is created,
the TIF--
The new taxes are actually
put into helping pay for public improvements.
And the next couple of slides
will actually help you understand that.
So we have an under-utilized site.
You'll notice on the left-hand side of the slide
the $2,500 a year in taxes coming in,
and those are...
that's separated between the school district,
the city, county, and technical college.
So you can see the property assessed at 100,000.
So it's been viewed as a blighted or under-utilized area.
So the community,
in trying to spur growth,
have made the following decisions to make investments.
You see a new building there with several expansions,
and you see a different footprint
for roads, things of that nature.
In the left-hand column, you'll see
some of the expenses for those improvements.
On the right-hand side,
you'll see the increased property values
and what occurs.
You'll notice year three, year seven, and year 15
where the revenue projections are.
So long story short,
in a TIF district,
you're really making...
in the developer's agreement,
you're truly understanding what their
revenue streams are gonna be,
and you're projecting out
the risk that you, as a community,
might wanna take.
In many cases, in my communities,
I would only do what the initial project is
and making sure that we can and cash-flow that.
And if we weren't able to do that,
then the community would make a decision
on whether we wanted to take any risk in the...
in doing TIF districts.
TIF districts can be amended and added to.
And you can very definitely
use this as a way to spur activity
in a designated market.
Once the TIF district is closed out,
so all the public infrastructure has been paid,
those taxes go back to the jurisdiction,
so the city, the school district,
the county, the technical college.
So it's a tool to make sure that we can pay
for the public infrastructure while there is
a need to cover those expenses.
Because the private sector, the company moving in
or doing the development won't pay for the city streets.
And with levy limits,
it's very difficult for communities
to actually extend streets without the use
of Tax Incremental Financing.
So in order to make deals happen,
there's the But-For clause.
"But for this development,
"the TIF district would not go in,
"and we would not use those public dollars,"
so a critical tool,
and sometimes confusing on the community,
and I think I'm making it a little bit
more confusing today, but
it's critical to help spur activity in your marketplace.
At the end of the day, economic development is, again,
truly about growing the economy,
growing your community,
and using the tools allowed by state
and local policies and ordinances and laws
to make sure that we're being accountable
for the public dollar,
and that we can help you grow your economy.
So with that, I just wanna say thank you
for the opportunity to speak with you today
and hopefully giving you a better understanding
of what economic development is today in Wisconsin.
Thank you.
(audience applauds)