Business Resources IX - Tracking Incentives

 Well, I was wrong. I had two more business resources to present. The first one was the project brief.  The second and last one is a variation of an incentive tracking spreadsheet I developed during my tenure with West Kentucky and later revised for my time with economic development in Prince Wiliam County.

One (and a fair one at that) criticism we get in economic development is not tracking incentives offered and received by a client.  In West Kentucky we always required an MOU that spelled out amounts, timelines, thresholds, review dates, and claw backs.  These documents are public, you just need to ask the city or county. 

Note that the timeline also includes state incentives, when appropriate.  This allowed me to track all incentives offered to a firm and all accepted by a firm. 

The need to track the incentives received and review dates is a critical foundation in economic development. After all, this is taxpayer funds.  We must be the absolute best stewards of these dollars as possible.  We must always work to maintain trust with our shareholders, stakeholders, and pubic at large.

Hence the need for the tracking spreadsheet.  I can determine every step of the incentive negotiation, approval, receipt, and review of any package received. 

The process is straightforward.  After the incentive is received by the company it is logged in by month. From this I can check the spreadsheet every month to see which company’s review time is coming up.  After that determination is made, I then draft the necessary correspondence and set up a meeting to review the company data and ensure that thresholds are indeed met.

If a company is not in compliance with the MOU, I then draft correspondence noting that the company is not in compliance with the MOU and what steps will be taken to ensure that they get into compliance. 

This may involve a give and take over a couple of weeks.  The goal is not to penalize the company, but to find a path to compliance.  If it appears that the company will not ever get into compliance with the MOU, then claw back procedures are implemented.  Fortunately, I never had to institute any claw back steps. However, if I did, the MOU clearly spelled out how.

This was a smooth process and it clearly spelled out the procedure for every step.

Link to spreadsheet:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qZDXGrgWswRBFJf4mtjOcFJh22ibQ6Qi/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105727592661546387822&rtpof=true&sd=true