Towns start to cooperate

State readies incentives to reinforce that cities benefit when region grows

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 3:12 AM
By Mark Ferenchik
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

After fighting one another for jobs for years and finding it counterproductive, communities throughout Ohio are trying to cooperate more.

To encourage that thinking, the Ohio Department of Development is putting together incentives, as mayors in 16 northeastern Ohio counties, including Richland, work on a plan to share new tax money.

"The department is reviewing a variety of options to get communities to work together and prevent competition," said Mark Barbash, chief economic-development officer for the Development Department.

The state announced a grant last week to provide $1 million to communities to study how to combine services.

State officials also are discussing rewarding groups of communities that collaborate on economic development, perhaps through revenue sharing or additional incentives such as tax breaks, Barbash said.

The goal is that businesses see cooperation rather than competition between communities that might push them out of state, Barbash said. Many community leaders understand that their success depends on the success of their region, he said.

However, Jeff Green, who is Groveport's development director and president of the Mid-Ohio Development Exchange, acknowledged that a lot of parochialism remains among central Ohio's elected officials. And although local leaders have discussed tax sharing, "we realized that's a long way off."

Last year, development directors for Columbus and eight of its suburbs -- Dublin, Gahanna, Groveport, New Albany, Obetz, Upper Arlington, Whitehall and Worthington -- pledged not to initiate attempts to poach jobs from other central Ohio communities.

That agreement has generally worked, Green said. "There's always going to be instances where a company is looking around purely for business reasons.

"We have to learn to play well together, and that's happening."

Matthew Shad, Upper Arlington's deputy city manager for economic development, agreed. "We still have to think of Columbus as a whole first," he said.

That happened when local officials met with Norfolk Southern representatives recently in Norfolk, Va., to discuss the $150 million Heartland Corridor, which includes a new train-truck terminal near Rickenbacker Airport.

The Columbus Chamber printed business cards for all local officials that read "The Columbus Region," Franklin County economic-development director Jim Schimmer said. "We're stronger in our marketing efforts as a region than individual locations."

In northeastern Ohio, officials are talking about sharing income and property taxes to boost a regional economic-development plan and projects.

Communities would put 40 percent of new property taxes and 20 percent of new income taxes into a pool they would share, said Hudson Mayor William A. Currin, who heads that region's group of mayors and city managers.

The money could be used to pay for public services as well as development, said Kerry Smith, a spokesman for the mayors group.

That plan might need state legislation to make it happen, Smith said.

In the Dayton area, Montgomery County communities share property-tax money generated by development anywhere in the county.

Communities also can apply for economic- development grants funded by a countywide sales tax, so a township, for example, can benefit from taxes generated by new projects in a neighboring city.

"There is much more collaboration," said Jack Dustin, director of the Center for Urban and Public Affairs at Wright State University.

mferenchik@dispatch.com