Des Moines Bound

It’s 165 miles from Davenport City Hall to the State Capitol.  Through today and tomorrow, Mayor Gluba, Alds. Gordon, Meeker and Justin will shuttle back and forth, with a small collection of staff, to represent Davenport at the QC Chamber’s annual lobbying visit.  I’m bringing buttons.

24,500 new Iowa jobs?  That seems easy for everyone to get behind.  We’ve crafted a fact sheet and some buttons to present the opportunity in a positive manner.

In 2006, the State created an economic development pilot program for a few border cities.  It’s called the Iowa Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Withholding program.  The program’s been successful (you can read the Iowa Department of Revenue’s report on the programs’ success here) and it’s been extended and expanded.  But it’s not yet included the state’s largest border city, across the river from the state’s largest bordering economy.

The math is simple – if Davenport has the same level of success attracting new jobs from our $671 billion bordering state economy as Sioux City has had with their $41 billion bordering state economy, Davenport could add 24,500 jobs to our regional (and State) economy.  If we are only one tenth as successful, that’s still 2,450 new jobs.  Keep in mind we’re not interested in moving jobs from Rock Island County to Scott County.  Our target will be Chicago area companies who’d like much better quality of life for their employees and lower taxes for their bottom line.

Thousands of new Iowa jobs can start with one sentence of law, that adds the state’s largest border city to the state’s border city tax credit program.