by Jon Styf
Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development has awarded six grants of $1 million or more through the first five months of 2023, with the highest being a $9 million grant to SK Food Group in January.
The FastTrack grants are state grants sent to help offset costs of expanding or moving into the state with the goal of increasing the number of full-time jobs and the average wages of jobs available in an area.
The grants are approved by the State Funding Board, which had a May 31 meeting scheduled that has since been removed from the calendar. The ECD announced in a press release Wednesday the Meco Corp. would be spending $27.8 million to expand its Greeneville location but the department did not reveal the incentive given to Meco.
Those incentives get posted to the ECD’s website within 30 days of a deal being announced.
The deals so far that gave companies more than $1 million of state funds went to 6K Energy Tennessee, Kordsa Inc, NYX Linden LLC, Formulated Solutions Cleveland LLC, SK Food Group and In-N-Out Burgers.
Nationally, incentives from companies are on the rise in terms of the number of incentives given and the amount awarded.
Good Jobs First reported using inflation-adjusted data that there was just one billion-dollar incentive in the 1980s, two in the 90s, 10 in the 200s, 12 in the 2010s and already 12 in the 2020s.
The report also cited academic research showing that, while economic incentives do not help states, they do bring political and financial benefit to the politicians who approve those incentives through large political donations.
Tennessee, meanwhile, awarded nearly $1 billion to Ford for its Blue Oval City project outside of Memphis while the Tennessee Titans have been promised $1.26 billion to build a new $2.1 billion stadium.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter of The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Tennessee Capitol” by Andre Porter. CC BY-SA 3.0.
SKEPTICAL – I asked that very question of my high-ranking representative. I was told that in essence the economic “development” cadre is allocated the equivalent of a slush fund to dole out as they see fit. I never got an answer as to the amount in the slush fund. I suppose someone with a good eye might be able to find that item hidden deeply ion the annual budget.
We all know how dependent America is on China for a lot of out basic needs. We found this out during the Covid hoax.
So it would seem to me, if my tax dollars are spent on new companies, I’d prefer it be used to attract companies that make aspirin & antibiotics that we now have to depend on China for. I’m always skeptical when tax dollars are doled out whe the the Governor is termed out. Does our State House have any say in where our tax dollars are spent?
This has got to be stopped.
This is how the sausage is made. The number of elected officials that accept this fleecing of the American Taxpayers is staggering. One need look no farther than the boondoggle in Knox County and the big government giveaway to UT President Randy Boyd.