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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2010 > December > 08 > Entry
Ohio ranks high in disclosure for government subsidies, but has much room for improvement
The good news: Ohio got the fourth highest grade nationally on a study released Wednesday that rates states on how much disclosure is provided about state and local tax breaks, cash grants and other job creation subsidies to private companies.
The bad news: Ohio has a long way to go, rating just a C+ on the study from Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research group based in Washington, D.C.
Click here for the study.
Ohio ranked behind Illinois, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
The study rated reporting practices of 245 economic development programs on inclusion and access to information such as company-specific dollar amounts, job-creation and the geographic location of subsidized facilities.
Each program was rated on a scale of 0 to 100, with extra credit for including advanced features. Scores for the programs in each state were averaged to get a state score.
Ohio got a 66. Other top finishers were: Illinois, 82, B; Wisconsin, 71, B- and North Carolina, 69.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have no disclosure at all and got a 0, for an F grade.
According to the Ohio Department of Development, from Jan. 1, 2007 to June 30, 2010, the state has committed $4.47 billion in funding through the department and has leveraged $21.18 billion for the state.
The department’s efforts have created 80,479 jobs, retained 309,104 jobs and is training 104,073 people, a department release said. The numbers are projected since companies have up to three years to create jobs, the release said.
“We are continuing to make headway in tracking our investments, and improving upon our current systems,” Katie Sabatino, department spokeswoman, said in an email.
“Transparency and accountability are priorities for us.”
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By John Cotini
December 9, 2010 6:58 AM | Link to this
I agree with Mr. Mark’s comment. I believe the Ohio monies usage should be transparent and will improve with Gov. Kasich. I, also agree that the socialist agenda with people like George Soros, Cass Sunstein, Van Jones and even Nancy Pelosi would like to silence the conservative and it would not surprise me to see it happen through news media like our newspapers and our opinion comments we enjoy. I hope I am wrong and Cox restores our ability to make comments on the actual commentaries rather than just blogs.
By James Mark
December 9, 2010 6:46 AM | Link to this
I believe the clarity will happen more as Governor Kasich gets adjusted. I think of the hard times Ohioans are going through with fewer job opportunities. Our Ohio govt. needs to use real data that reflects where the monies went and how many, along with severity of living conditions made evident. I would also like to note that this paper, Cox News, has kept it’s public from commenting on the opinion pages now since the election. Are they going to allow us back on the Opinion pages to comment again? I fear the liberal agenda has taken hold to silence those who oppose.
By ohiodale
December 8, 2010 7:37 PM | Link to this
Paul - What!! This is about disclosure not forms. I don’t think Ohio does a good job attracting business into our state seeing that it ranks 4 in the most unfriendly business climate out of all 50 states. Maybe that why we disclose so much because there little to disclose.
By paul
December 8, 2010 5:01 PM | Link to this
It seems like every state should be using the same form, requiring the same information, for comparison purposes. But that would make too much sense, wouldn’t it? Our government does everything the hard way, so nobody can figure anything out.