At the Thursday, March 4 virtual work session, the Greensboro City Council decided it liked the carrot city staff proposed better than the stick the City Council had proposed.
At the Feb. 16 City Council meeting, Councilmember Sharon Hightower had requested that companies receiving economic incentives be required to hire 10 percent of their workforce from the economic impact zones.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “Maybe 10 percent is not high enough.”
But Councilmembers Justin Outling and Marikay Abuzuaiter objected to Hightower’s proposal to force companies to hire from a particular economically distressed area in order to receive economic incentives.
Staff presented a solution at the March 4 work session that garnered nothing but praise from councilmembers and Greensboro Chamber of Commerce President Brent Christensen.
Rather than requiring companies receiving economic incentives to hire a portion of their workforce from the economic impact zones, staff’s proposal rewards companies that hire employees from that area.
Impact zones are areas that have been identified as economically distressed and largely make up what is often referred to as East Greensboro.
The revised Economic Incentive Program Guidelines that City Manager David Parrish said would be on the agenda for the Tuesday, March 16 City Council meeting will include a $250 per job additional incentive for employees hired in the impact zones and $250 per job additional incentive for employees hired through the City’s Office of Workforce Development. So a company will have the opportunity of receiving an additional $500 incentive for hiring an employee through workforce development who lives in an impact zone.
The total amount of additional incentives available is 10 percent of the original incentive.
Companies with a corporate or divisional headquarters in Guilford County may also be eligible for an additional 10 percent economic incentive above what is listed in the guidelines.
So, a company may receive a bonus just for being here.
“What we have here is a whole lot of nothing.” Govt does not create jobs, it destroys them.
Will the City reimburse said companies for lost revenue or damages caused when said employees “don’t work out?” It also sounds like at the core of it all there may be motivations based on race yet again. Affirmative action and the like lives on as an incentive to hire less whites. Folks that’s racism no matter what fancy spin you put on it. The trend that never ends…
Who in their right mind would choose to put a new business here when they can go someplace else that has real leaders with some common sense?
LBJ’s idea. Anyone want to hear why I think LBJ is our worst President?
I guess that Hightower has not figured out that the trouble zones did not graduate from high school .The majority have been told by their parents you don’t have to respect parents ,teachers,preachers ,law enforcement,nor anyone in authority.Some .Therefore if hired would go to the job with a chip on their shoulder and not want to do what the job requires.So Hightower,why don’t you work with the parents and make these children stay in school and learn to listen to their elders and take instructions better.