Two points jump out from a recent Sakonnet Times article on an economic development presentation in Tiverton (no longer online). First:
[Rhode Island Economic Development Commission Executive Director Keith] Stokes said Tiverton land values, cost structures, and businesses needed to be consistent and competitive with the adjoining states of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The unstated connection — at least as reported — is that our town and state must be competitive for the benefit of home buyers (those who influence land values) and business operators (those who make the state economically competitive), and a check of the tax assessor’s page in neighboring Westport, Massachusetts, shows that Tiverton’s currently expected $15.40 tax rate compares with $5.25, there. That’s the 2007 number, the latest that a quick Google search revealed, but it’s unlikely that Westport’s rate has tripled in the past three years.
Yes, Massachusetts handles taxes according to different policies, with more aid coming from the state, as I understand, but few home buyers will develop a fully subtle understanding of such matters before comparing the amount that one town will add to the mortgage payment, compared with another town’s take.
Second:
[According to Stokes,] poor education leads to ignoring the local workforce in favor of importing better-educated workers from out-of-state. Fidelity investments, for example, in Smithfield imports a large percentage of its 3,000 employees from elsewhere.
One hears this line of reasoning frequently, and it always has a fatal flaw. An investment in an educated workforce is certainly necessary, but unless that workforce can find local employers, we’ll wind up exporting the fruits of our investment. That is what’s happening in Rhode Island, as our best and brightest find they must look to other states to provide the job opportunities that have motivated their hard work.
In short, if our investment in education — and let’s put aside Rhode Island’s and Tiverton’s questionable results — leads to policies that drive up the cost of living in the state and the difficulty of doing business, here, it can only be self-defeating. In the first stages of pulling Rhode Island out of the dry well into which it’s fallen, our attitude about businesses’ importing workers has to be, “so what,” followed by, “let’s do better from here forward. An active economy will provide the revenue to invest in education without making a disincentive of our town and state cost structures. Moreover, an influx of success-oriented (non-public-sector) residents, many of whom will bring families with them, can only improve voter input to better shape our school system.
Most importantly, an active business environment does not include a static workforce of initial employees. It grows. Diverges. Expands. As our children graduate from high school and college, they’ll find Rhode Island to be a first choice not just for familial, geographical, and social reasons, but for economic reasons, as well.
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