<< Back 11/20/02 Local businesses are underappreciated SMN Differences about how Western North Carolina should try to grow its economy are widespread. That’s unfortunate, because this region needs to find a collective voice if it is ever going to succeed at tooling the economy for growth and sustainability. Instead of trying to lure any single economic sector, though, we should tout ourselves as something altogether different — the region that wants and works hard to help small businesses succeed. That is our future, and much of our economic development efforts ignore this reality. Perhaps our most pressing challenge is the lack of attention from Raleigh. Leaders there, including Gov. Mike Easley, were busy this summer touting the proposed benefits of the recently passed and grand sounding “N.C. Economic Stimulus and Job Creation Act.” In essence, this bill lets large employers keep the portion of the state income tax that is deducted from workers’ checks and usually sent to the state. The employee doesn’t get the money, and this incentive is reserved just for large employers. That’s the kind of employers we never get in Western North Carolina. Not enough land, little infrastructure, and so on and so on. So this bill will do absolutely nothing for us, unless we just plain get lucky. We’re used to this inattention, though. Instead, our universities and community colleges are relied on to help us carry the load. And they are trying, forming partnerships to bolster our high-technology future. The hope is that the quality of life we have here will entice existing corporations or perhaps even lure a few well-heeled entrepreneurs. Chances are we will see some growth in the sectors like computer technology, bioengineering and more. Workers here who have lost their careers as manufacturers have departed will not benefit from these jobs, as was pointed out in a recent news story about research being conducted at Western Carolina University. Many of them have only high school diplomas, some not even that. They have been able to land in other fields, helped no doubt by our booming housing construction industry. We certainly encourage our educational institutions to continue their research and partnership building, but our greatest potential lies in attracting entrepreneurs and fostering an environment that is attractive to small business start-ups. Anyone in Western North Carolina can look around where they live and see that is the portion of our economy that is thriving. So how do we help them? We can start with switching the focus of our county economic development commissions. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year in Western North Carolina counties in outdated economic development practices. Right now it is left to chambers of commerce and tourism development groups to help small businesses thrive. How about a more creative way to spend the local tax dollars that are pouring into our economic development groups? How about a local public-private loan pool for entrepreneurs? How about local tax breaks for new businesses? How about incentives for job growth by existing small businesses, perhaps based on overall payroll expenditures? The typical small business in this state has three employees and takes in around $175,000 per year. It wouldn’t take a lot to help that company grow. One of the problems is venture capital. Some estimates say that 95 percent of the money that is available in North Carolina stays in the Research Triangle Park and in Charlotte. The Rural Prosperity Task Force has recently made some funds available to rural areas, and that will help. Look, small business people don’t expect handouts. But we’ve got to flip our economic development models and use local tax money to develop an environment that rewards homegrown businesses that employ local people who spend all their money right here in this region. That will invigorate the local economy.