Porter: Lack of transparency from IEDC should concern all Hoosiers

During a State Budget Committee meeting today, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) requested $293 million for projects, including land acquisition in Boone and Howard Counties and several manufacturing projects. State Rep. Gregory W. Porter (D-Indianapolis) has consistently called for more transparency from IEDC on how the organization is using the funding it receives from Hoosier taxpayers via the Indiana General Assembly.

Porter issued the following statement regarding the latest funding requests from the IEDC:

“I continue to be perplexed as to why hundreds of millions of dollars are being requested upfront by the IEDC with minimal details on what these tax dollars are going to be used for, who is going to be provided with them and the timing of the funds actually being spent. Most importantly, taxpayers deserve to know what degree of certainty they have that the companies receiving these dollars have committed to locating and maintaining their investment in Indiana.

“As is par for the course for IEDC, there is no firm, articulated basis for evaluating whether these projects its requesting funding for are successful or not in precipitating the jobs or investment underlying their specific budgetary requests. No specific benchmarks for success have ever been articulated nor have any performance indicators been revealed. The requests we heard today, like every other monetary request from the IEDC, we on the State Budget Committee are simply asked to trust but not verify what the IEDC is intending to do with this additional nearly $300 million in funding requests.

“It's incredibly confusing how IEDC continues to get incremental funding for projects that have already been initially funded. Several projects on the State Budget Committee agenda today are already receiving supplemental funding for existing Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace (LEAP) District area footprint projects that were just funded a few months ago. Some of the projects the State Budget Committee has already approved land purchases for are being revisited to provide additional funding for land purchases to renew land option contracts that have expired.

“As has been the case since the beginning of the IEDC funding for transformational projects, no information has been provided on what the total amount of state support will be for these projects. For instance, is the land that is being bought for these companies and the direct subsidies all that these companies

are receiving? Are these companies also receiving Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) tax credit, training grants and subsidies for their massive water extraction needs or in this is case, is the cost of the water supply for these projects going to be subsidized by ratepayers in the adjoining counties?

“With the cloak of secrecy involved with these IEDC projects, will we ever know if these projects were already going to come to Indiana and we are just unnecessarily putting icing on the cake with taxpayer monies to build up the corporate bottom line profit on these projects?

“There are so many unanswered questions on so many elements of these IEDC project requests. I must ask what is the rush to provide commitments for these projects that are heavy users of water when we do not know at this time if we can verify and validate the water is there in sufficient enough quantities to do these projects.

“I appreciate that one of the mantra's of the IEDC is to do things 'at the speed of business.' However, it was instilled in me many years ago that an equally compelling admonition that we need to take into account as we move forward with the bestowal of scarce state tax dollars for these projects is 'haste makes waste.' We cannot afford to make billion-dollar mistakes when it comes to economic development. Let's set a new tone and encourage, if not mandate, IEDC to be more forthcoming with the specifics of what they intend to spend these billions on. Transparency has been proven to be the best way to go when it comes to the expenditures of public dollars.”