The Sherburne County Jobs for Fees program would provide assistance to businesses for an expansion and job creation within the county, or a new business that would relocate to the county and bring in new employment opportunities.

 

The proposed program was introduced by Sherburne County Assessor Dan Weber during a workshop with the county commissioners and representative from Springsted, the firm hired as a consultant to develop the county’s Economic Development Strategic Plan.

 

A number of objectives were discussed during the workshop, including collaboration with local government (cities and townships);

investing in transportation (transit) and technology infrastructure (broadband); hiring marketing experts;  training county staff to write grants; maximizing  the value of county land by making it shovel-ready, and reviewing and updating financial incentive policies.

 

Weber said the Jobs program is an incentive policy based on one used in City of Jordan.

 

The assistance to business would be provided as a forgivable loan using specific criteria to score each project. That criteria includes new jobs, wages, increase in tax base, land use, impact on existing and future public investment, economic development and quality of life improvement.

 

“Public purpose outcomes have to be verified and measured in order to receive funding,” said Tony Schertler of Springsted, “We’re saying those  events that create jobs and wages are more important than other events.”

 

Weber and County Administrator Steve Taylor would score each project, present it to the county EDA then to the county board for final approval. 

 

Weber said his suggestion would be to fund the program using 5% of the County Program Aid (CPA) the county receives from the state each year. 

 

“There wouldn’t be any levy dollars,” he said. “And if the CPA gets cut, this program would not be funded.”

 

He said  that would be about $200,000. He also suggested about one quarter of the money be held for county projects.

 

“The other $150,000 could be applied for by cities, townships and local businesses,” he said.

 

Weber said the legality of the program is still unclear, since the county hasn’t done anything like it before.

 

“But I wanted you to hear the concept before I have staff use a lot of resources on it,” he said.

 

Schertler said the program is not new, but the county has to research how they want to structure the program.

 

“Other cities are doing it, so there’s nothing unique about it,” he said. “You just have to be careful about how you do this and who has the authority to use these dollars for a particular type of event.”

 

The program could be implemented as early as 2015.

 

The board gave Weber the go-ahead to do more research into the program.