Growth, collaboration, and responsible planning can strengthen the local economy and potentially help ease the residential tax burden.
Emporia is at an economic crossroads. Businesses have left, closed or downsized over the last few years. However, that does not mean that Emporia cannot recover. How does Emporia attract new business investment in a digital age with the abundance of publicly available and proprietary data?
Attracting new business investment requires more than offering incentives. Successful communities typically provide three essentials: reliable infrastructure, a skilled and available workforce, and a cooperative and predictable environment in which businesses can plan and operate with confidence.
Reliable Infrastructure
Businesses need dependable roads, utilities, broadband, public services, and transportation connections. A community that invests in infrastructure demonstrates that it is prepared to support employers and accommodate future growth. Streamlined permitting and clear development standards are also important because unnecessary delays and uncertainty can discourage investment.
A Skilled Workforce
Companies look for communities where they can recruit and keep qualified employees. Local schools, community colleges, workforce-development programs, and partnerships between employers and educators can help create a strong talent pipeline. Quality housing, public safety, parks, and other amenities also help attract workers and support a healthy local economy.
A Cooperative and Predictable Community
Investors need confidence that a community can make decisions fairly, communicate clearly, and follow established rules. Residents, elected officials, business leaders, and developers do not have to agree on every proposal, but they should have meaningful opportunities to ask questions and raise legitimate concerns. Fact-based discussions, and a willingness to find reasonable compromises can make the community more attractive to potential businesses. Large businesses emanate from a site selector process. Site selectors are looking for reasons to eliminate a community from consideration. Ambiguity and/or uncertainty in a community is an easy elimination factor among site selectors.
Emporia has what many investors are looking for in infrastructure: interstate highways, rail, availability of power, gas, water, and significant internet bandwidth and backbone. That infrastructure along with Emporia State, Flint Hills Tech, KansasWorks, and an engaged community make Emporia a strong candidate for investment. There has been discussion for years that graduates from Emporia State and Flint Hills Tech leave town to find jobs. Let Emporia bring jobs to Emporia to keep our graduates local.
How New Investment Broadens The Tax Base And Could Help Lower Residential Property Taxes
New business investment can expand the community’s tax base by adding commercial and industrial property without placing the entire burden of funding public services on homeowners. As the tax base grows, local governments may have more flexibility to lower the residential property tax rate, reduce the share of revenue collected from homeowners, or fund services while limiting future tax increases.
To pursue a lower residential property tax rate, a community can take several measures:
*Broaden the tax base: Attract new employers, commercial development, and redevelopment of vacant or underused properties so that more taxable value contributes to public services. Look around as you travel around town, commercial vacancies are abundant here in Emporia.
*Encourage balanced growth: Plan development carefully so that new investment produces sufficient tax revenue to help cover the costs of roads, utilities, schools, public safety, and other services.
*Control spending: Review budgets, improve operational efficiency, prioritize essential services, and avoid unnecessary recurring costs.
*Use incentives strategically: Structure tax abatements or other incentives with clear performance requirements, end dates, and public benefits, so that incentives support long-term growth rather than permanently reducing the tax
base.
*Maintain accurate assessments: Ensure that residential and commercial properties are assessed fairly and consistently under applicable law.
*Plan for infrastructure costs: Evaluate both the immediate and long-term costs of each project before approval, including maintenance and public-service demands. Business growth does not automatically guarantee lower taxes. The result depends on the value of the investment, the number and quality of jobs created, the cost of public services, local budget decisions, and the terms of any incentives. Nevertheless, a diversified tax base can give a community more options other than relying primarily on residential property owners.
The Cost of Unproductive Opposition
Citizens have every right to question proposed projects, request information, and oppose developments they believe would harm the community. However, opposition that is consistently hostile, personal, or unwilling to consider evidence can send a powerful message to future investors. Hence the ‘cooperative and predictable community’ noted above.
When businesses conclude that a community is too difficult or uncertain to work with, they will invest elsewhere. Lost investment means fewer jobs, less commercial tax revenue, fewer opportunities for local suppliers, and greater pressure on existing taxpayers. If a community rejects opportunities, regardless of whether the investor addresses the concerns of the community, that pattern will amount to economic suicide. And our community will continue the decline we are currently experiencing.
The better approach is constructive scrutiny. Residents should have transparency, negotiate meaningful safeguards, and hold developers and officials accountable. At the same time, community leaders and citizens should recognize that responsible investment requires cooperation and compromise. A community that combines high standards with a fair, predictable process is more likely to attract investment, strengthen its tax base, and create the conditions for a lower residential property tax burden. If I had to guess, we would all like to see new business investment and at least the possibility of our property taxes being reduced.
If you want Emporia to be attractive to future economic development, then you need to get out and vote ‘NO’ on questions #2 and #3 in November.
Bill McKernan is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with over 31 years of service and former Emporia State University Executive Director of Facilities.
Click here to read McKernan’s first op-ed on Emporia’s data center situation.
