Laserfiche WebLink
Housing and Economic Development <br />• State funding to allow cities and/or their development authorities to assemble <br />small properties so that business expansion sites will be ready for future <br />redevelopment; <br />• Innovative Business Development Public Infrastructure grants; and <br />City authority to redevelop land previously used as landfills and dumps with <br />initial approval from a state regulatory authority, a city's redevelopment project <br />considered as final. <br />3-J (3) Workforce Readiness <br />A trained workforce is important to a strong local, regional and state economy. Cities <br />have an interest in the availability of qualified workers and building a future workforce as <br />part of their economic development efforts and can work with the public and private <br />sectors to address workforce readiness issues such as addressing racial disparities in both <br />the achievement and employment gaps. The state has a role to prepare and train a <br />qualified workforce through the higher education system and job training and retraining <br />programs in the Department of Employment and Economic Development, including <br />youth employment programs. <br />Metro Cities supports: <br />• Continued funding for the Job Skills Partnership, youth employment programs <br />and other workforce training programs administered by the state that lead to <br />jobs that provide a living wage and benefits, and help address racial disparity <br />gaps in employment; <br />• Innovative workforce programs and partnerships that foster workforce <br />readiness; <br />• A payroll tax credit for job training programs that invest in employees; and <br />• A city's authority to tie workforce requirements to local public finance <br />assistance. <br />3-K Tax Increment Financing <br />Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has been and continues to be the primary tool available <br />for local communities to assist economic development, redevelopment and housing. Over <br />time, several statutory changes have made this critical tool increasingly difficult to use. <br />At the same time, federal and state development and redevelopment resources have been <br />steadily shrinking. The cumulative impact of TIF restrictions, shrinking federal and state <br />redevelopment resources and highly restrictive eminent domain laws constrain cities' <br />abilities to address problem properties, which leads to an accelerated level of decline of <br />30 2016 Legislative Policies <br />