Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Housing & Economic Development 3-J (3) Workforce Readiness A trained workforce is important to a strong local, regional and state economy. Cities have an interest in the availability of qualified workers and building a future workforce as part of their economic development efforts. Cities can work with the public and private sectors to address workforce readiness issues such as addressing racial disparities in both the achievement and employment gaps. The state has a role to prepare and train a qualified workforce through the secondary, vocational and higher education systems and job training and retraining programs in the Department of Employment and Economic Development, including youth employment programs. Metro Cities supports: • Continued funding for the Job Skills Partnership,youth employment programs and other workforce training programs administered by the state that lead to jobs that provide a living wage and benefits, and help address racial disparity gaps in employment; • Innovative workforce programs and partnerships that foster workforce readiness; • A payroll tax credit for job training programs that invest in employees; and • A city's authority to tie workforce requirements to local public finance assistance. 3-K Tax Increment Financing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has been and continues to be the primary tool available for local communities to assist economic development, redevelopment and housing. Over time, several statutory changes have made this critical tool increasingly difficult to use. At the same time, federal and state development and redevelopment resources have been steadily shrinking. The cumulative impact of TIF restrictions, shrinking federal and state redevelopment resources and highly restrictive eminent domain laws constrain cities' abilities to address problem properties, which leads to an accelerated level of decline of developed cities in the Metropolitan Area. Thus, the only source of revenue available to accomplish the scope of redevelopment necessary is the value created by the redevelopment itself, or the"increment." Without the use of the increment, development will either not occur or is unlikely to be optimal. Metro Cities urges the Legislature to: • Not adopt any statutory language that would further constrain or directly or indirectly reduce the effectiveness of TIF; 2017 Legislative Policies 31