Subsidy Tracker
, the Good Jobs First database of economic development subsidy awards to companies, is continuing to expand its inventory of local programs while filling in some state ones as well. Data on a dozen programs has just been uploaded, bringing Tracker’s coverage to more than 227,000 awards from 368 programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The newest additions are of three types. First, there are statewide compilations of subsidies given out at the local level: Alabama’s Industrial Development Grants; tax increment financing in Nebraska and Oklahoma; and Tennessee’s PILOT agreements. Second, we have a couple of state programs: Hawaii’s Employment and Training Fund Statewide Grants and Louisiana’s Motion Picture Industry Development Tax Credits.
Finally, there are some datasets on specific local programs: property tax abatement data from the Kansas cities of Lawrence and Manhattan as well as Fort Worth and Dallas County in Texas; Cincinnati’s Property Investment Reimbursements; and the city of Virginia Beach’s Economic Development Investment Program.
The information was obtained in several cases from newly discovered online documents; in all but one of the rest we obtained unpublished data from government agencies. The Louisiana film subsidy data was obtained by the Louisiana Budget Project, which agreed to let us use it as well.
For ready reference, here is a list of all the new datasets:
Alabama: Industrial Development Grant (2007-Jan 2012)
Hawaii: Employment and Training Fund Statewide Grants (2007-2011)
Kansas: Lawrence property tax abatements (2011)
Kansas: Manhattan property tax abatements (2011)
Louisiana: Motion Picture Industry Development Tax Credit (2009-2011)
Nebraska: Local tax increment financing (2011)
Ohio: Cincinnati Property Investment Reimbursement (2001-Aug 2012)
Oklahoma: Local tax increment financing (2011)
Tennessee: County PILOT agreements (2011)
Texas: Dallas County property tax abatements (1988-2011)
Texas: Fort Worth property tax abatements (2000-Jun 2012)
Virginia: Virginia Beach Economic Development Investment Program (1991-Jun 2012)