Business Facilities - February 2009 - (Page 13) FEATURE STORY By Jenny Vickers In hard times, economic development specialists have created unique and innovative incentive packages to help ease the financial burden on existing companies and make it attractive for new ones to locate to their states. I PHOTO CREDIT: STOCK.XCHNG; IMAGE DESIGN: MEGAN KNIGHT, ART DIRECTOR, GROUP C MEDIA ndustry has faced enormous economic challenges in the past year. An unprecedented global financial crisis has caused businesses of every size and across every sector to suffer massive layoffs and down-sizing, with 2.6 million people being put out of work in 2008. During these difficult times, federal and state governments have taken dramatic measures to kick-start the economy and improve the job climate. Federal and state business incentives, aimed at pulling the U.S. economy out of the prolonged recession, have been designed to create higher-paying jobs, stimulate growth within small business, and help transition the economy to a clean energy future. The Obama Administration’s federal economic recovery plan, which was moving through Congress at press time, could help businesses of all types. The plan includes business incentives that reduce corporate tax rates and provide capital for equipment, tax breaks, and targeted assis- tance for key industries. The stimulus package has been tailored to promote a clean energy economy and impact the employment situation immediately, so companies must be green, and have projects that are shovelready, short-term, and job-producing. While they await the final structure of the federal relief package, state economic development executives have unveiled plans to provide incentive packages that will provide immediate assistance to create jobs, strengthen local economies, and boost key industries. “In these tough economic times, business incentives are becoming extremely important,” says Mike Hickey, owner and founder of Hickey and Associates, LLC, a business consulting firm that has successfully negotiated hundreds of millions of dollars in funding support for companies in diverse industries for the past 20 years. “Right now, states are competing nationally and internationally to BUSINESS FACILITIES 13
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