, the Good Jobs First database of company-specific information on state and local economic development subsidies, has extended its geographic reach. Tracker now has some data from 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The latest states to be represented are Massachusetts, New Mexico and Wyoming, along with DC. We also added more data from Arizona, Maryland and Wisconsin. Tracker now contains information on more than 115,000 subsidy awards from 278 programs.
This new information was collected from a variety of sources. Maryland just posted a new online tool called
Finance Tracker
, which contains data on various tax credit, grant and loan programs from the past few years. With recipient address data (which assists in mapping) and download features, it is a big improvement on the PDF reports that used to be the state’s main form of disclosure. The tax credit listings, however, still lack amounts.
Wisconsin’s updated info comes from the
less-than-elegant compilation
of economic development awards posted by the state’s Commerce Department. The
Arizona
and
Wyoming
data come from PDF reports on single programs, while DC’s information is from its first
Unified Economic Development Report
(distributed in PDF form as well).
The Massachusetts and New Mexico data are unpublished. The info on the Massachusetts Economic Development Incentive Program was obtained through a public records request filed by MASSPIRG, which kindly agreed to share the results with us. The info on New Mexico’s Job Training Incentive Program was supplied directly by the state’s Economic Development Department.
The fact that a state is represented in Tracker does not mean that we have data on all of its subsidy programs. Our coverage of states varies greatly, depending on what has been posted online. Since we have captured everything of significance that is on the web, our focus now is on collecting more unpublished data – both from the five states not yet in Tracker (Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada and South Carolina) and on additional programs from the other 45 states.
Stay tuned as we continue our effort to drag every state subsidy program into the sunlight.