Voice For Liberty

Tag: Subsidy

  • For downtown Wichita, Mayor Brewer has a vision

    In Sunday’s Wichita Eagle, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer penned a piece that states his belief in the importance of downtown and prepares the people of Wichita for the start of a prescriptive planning process, with accompanying subsidy to politically-favored developers willing to fulfill the plan.

    The mayor used the word “vibrant” twice. Asking citizens a question like “Would you like to have a vibrant downtown?” is meaningless. Who doesn’t? It’s only when the question is accompanied by context that citizens can start to understand how they should answer.

    For example, in the mayor’s article, he mentions the use of special assessment financing that funded suburban infrastructure, and that this is not sufficient for downtown needs. This statement reveals a misunderstanding by the mayor about the various forms of financing that might be used to help development.

    Special assessment financing means that the city spends money to build something, like the new street to serve a site where someone wants to build a house or a shopping center. The cost of this street, plus interest, is added to the property’s tax bill over a period of years. The property owner doesn’t get anything for free.

    But in the forms of financing that the mayor and city hall planners favor for downtown, developers do get something for free. Under tax increment financing (TIF), developers get to use their property taxes to pay for the same infrastructure that everyone else has to pay for. That’s because in TIF, the increment in property taxes are used to pay off bonds that were issued for the exclusive benefit of a development. Or, as in the case with a new form of TIF called pay-as-you-go, the increment in property taxes are simply given back to the developer. (Which leads to the question: why even pay at all?)

    Some deny that TIF directly enriches the developer. They’ll make arguments such as “it’s only used for infrastructure and eligible expenses” or “it’s not lending, it’s bonding” or “it wouldn’t happen but for TIF” or the biggest lie: TIF doesn’t have any cost. But despite these claims, TIF has a cost, and it does directly enrich the developer. That’s its entire purpose; its reason for being. If TIF didn’t enrich the developer, how does it change something that is claimed to be not economically feasible into something that is?

    While city leaders say that public participation in the revitalization of downtown is to be limited, we should be cautious and skeptical. Goody Clancy planners have said that public participation will be limited to TIF. This is bad in its own right and should be opposed on its merits.

    We need to be skeptical of the mayor and downtown planners because there isn’t enough TIF money available to do what they want to do. I fully expect a citywide sales tax, probably in the amount of one cent per dollar, to be proposed for the benefit of downtown subsidized developers. City leaders speak fondly of such a tax that Oklahoma City has used for many years.

    City leaders have already shown themselves to be not averse to imposing additional sales taxes in Wichitans and our visitors, having granted several Community Improvement Districts the ability to charge up to an additional two cents per dollar sales tax. This means that when visitors check out of the Fairfield Inn in downtown Wichita, they’ll be faced with a sales tax rate of 9.3 percent. That’s in addition to the six percent guest tax, which in the case of this hotel is collected for the exclusive benefit of itself, rather than funding general government and tourism activities.

    More community improvement districts are in the works. Wichita may soon be peppered with them.

    No faith in free markets means no faith in people

    The unwillingness of Wichita city leaders to let Wichitans freely decide where they live, and Wichita businesses freely decide where to locate, is a sign of lack of confidence in free markets and the people of Wichita. Because Wichitans do not choose to live and locate their business firms where politicians like Carl Brewer and Janet Miller — to name just two — and city hall bureaucrats like Wichita city manager Bob Layton and Wichita economic development director Allen Bell want them to, they deliver a slap in the face. It appears in the form of a vision backed up by planning, regulation, and the power to dish out favorable tax treatment, as outlined above.

    Once formed, a vision is a powerful force. Randal O’Toole, author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future has written about visionaries and government planning:

    The worst thing about having a vision is that it confers upon the visionary a moral absolutism: only highly prescriptive regulation can ensure that the vision overcomes an uncaring populace responding to a free market that planners do not really trust. But the more prescriptive the plan, the more likely it is that the plan will be wrong, and such errors will prove extremely costly for the city or region that tries to implement the plan.

    An example of planning that many see as having gone wrong is the government planning that led to growth on the city’s fringes. An example that helped make this possible is the government’s decision to build the northeast expressway also known as K-96. Acts of government like this are claimed to have caused the demise of downtown, the very situation that planners now want to correct.

    With government making “mistakes” (their claim, not mine) like this on a grand scale, why are we willing to trust that politicians and bureaucrats are making correct decisions now? Especially when you look at the campaign finance reports of most city council members and see the same names giving repeatedly to all council members, with these same names appearing repeatedly before the council asking for their subsidy. This is not a decision making process that gives citizens confidence.

    It bears repeating: the existence of the downtown planning process tells Wichitans they’ve made a mistake in where they chose to buy a home or build a business. Not only will Wichitans have to pay for what they freely chose, they’re going to be asked to pay again so that those with purportedly superior vision can have their way.

  • Kansas airports and their economic impact

    Last week’s release by the Kansas Department of Transportation of a study of the economic impact of Kansas airports caused quite a stir, with newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times (at least its online version) carrying the Associated Press coverage.

    Perhaps the reason so many distant newspapers were interested in the story is the sensationally large economic impact figures reported. The number of jobs purported to airports is large, by any standard.

    But there’s a problem with these numbers. They’re similar to sensational claims made a few years ago when the case for subsidizing airlines in Wichita was made. Those figures were bogus. So are these.

    The staggeringly large figures come from two aspects of the study. First, the study counts the economic activity from businesses near the airport as attributable to the airport. In the case of the Wichita airport, this means that the employees of Cessna and Bombardier Learjet, and all the economic activity these companies produce, is credited as economic impact of the airport.

    This economic sleight-of-hand allows the study to attribute 22,313 jobs to the Wichita airport. The total economic impact of the Wichita airport is reported as $4.7 billion.

    All these employees don’t work for the airport. Almost all of them work at business firms located near the airport. But the study doesn’t really make that distinction. And when you do things like this, you can really pump up some inflated figures.

    It is a convenient circumstance that these two manufacturers happen to be located near the airport. To credit the airport with the economic impact of these companies — as though the airport was involved in the actual manufacture of airplanes instead of providing an incidental (but important) service — is to grossly overstate the airport’s role and its economic importance.

    A second problem is the study’s use of economic impact multipliers to pump up the figures. A multiplier reflects the fact that money spent at, say an airport, get spent again. Proponents of multipliers forget that money spent elsewhere get multiplied too. In fact, money that is saved and invested get multiplied, too.

    These two factors inspired the Associated Press reporter to lead off a story with “Airports in Kansas support more than 47,000 jobs, generate $2.3 billion in payroll and have an annual economic impact of $10.4 billion …” With numbers so big, you can see why news editors in far-away cities might run the story.

    There’s another problem: these studies usually assume that all the activity is the responsibility of the entity being promoted, that none of it would have happened without the celebrated entity, and that since (usually) the promoted entities are government-owned, all this is evidence of the goodness of government.

    Another problem is that these economic impact figures get used several times to support various government subsidies to business. Here we have the airport claiming two aircraft manufacturing companies’ employees and their economic impact as the product of the airport.

    But when these companies want corporate welfare from the Kansas state government, the economic impact of the companies and their employees will be cited as justification. Politicians, bureaucrats, and the public will believe their case.

    Then, the same numbers might be cited again at Wichita city hall, and maybe before the Sedgwick County Commission as the company makes its case for industrial revenue bonds, tax abatements, forgivable loans, and other forms of local corporate welfare.

    But this economic impact can’t be recycled like this. It exists only once. If the Wichita airport claims it, then it can’t be used again to justify some other program or request.

    Another way the study leaps beyond credibility is its inclusion of the Beech Factory Airport in east Wichita. This is an airport without commercial air service. It exists solely for the convenience of Hawker Beechcraft, and is undoubtedly a necessary component of the capital plant needed to manufacture airplanes.

    The study, however, mixes this airport in with all other Kansas airports, so this airport’s claimed $1.8 billion in economic impact is treated the same as any other Kansas airport. But regular people can’t catch a flight at this airport.

    When government officials use stretched and inflated figures like these, they diminish their credibility. The Kansas Department of Transportation already snowed the Kansas public earlier this year with their claims of the need for huge spending on Kansas roads and highways.

    Now they’re at it again, with claims that simply make no economic sense at all. The fact that news media laps up these figures without any skepticism or critical thought doesn’t help.

    Does this mean that Kansas and its local government shouldn’t offer airports and businesses like aircraft manufacturers help from the public treasury? That’s a different question for a different day.

    Today, however, we need to realize that accurate, reasonable, and believable information about Kansas airports and other transportation infrastructure isn’t available from the Kansas Department of Transportation.

  • Goody Clancy: public subsidy required for Wichita downtown plan

    The recent presentation of the draft master plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita gave Wichitans a preview of the forms of public assistance that Goody Clancy recommends the city use. The plan may be viewed at the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation website.

    It is a given, according to Goody Clancy, that downtown development will require public subsidy. Here’s an example as to why it is necessary: One of the issues with downtown development, especially in Wichita according to Goody Clancy, is “land acquisition & land lease issues.” It is contended that land ownership is fragmented, and assembling parcels for development is difficult. Therefore, public assistance is required.

    The shakiness of this argument can be seen by examining recent events in Wichita. Earlier this year, a developer wanted to build a hotel in the downtown WaterWalk area. There are no land acquisition issues there. The city assembled that property — using eminent domain as a tool — some years ago. There is one owner. Yet, the hotel still required massive subsidy to make it economically feasible, according to the developer and Wichita city staff.

    In a Wednesday morning workshop on the issue of public funding, a Goody Clancy consultant hinted at a legislative solution to the land acquisition problem. No more details were given, but solutions to problems like this usually involve the use of eminent domain.

    Public assistance is proposed to be used only for those items that have a public purpose. The primary use is likely to be public parking. According to the logic of Goody Clancy consultants, if public funds pay for a parking garage located between an apartment building and an office building, that really doesn’t benefit just those two properties. Instead, it benefits everyone. It’s a public amenity. It’s infrastructure.

    Nevermind that anywhere but downtown, people have to pay for their own parking. Homeowners build garages and driveways at their own expense. Developers build parking lots on their own.

    While “structured parking” — that’s planner-speak for multi-story parking garages — is more expensive to build per parking spot than surface lots, that’s no reason for the public to pay.

    The forms of public assistance mentioned as available for use include, at the state and national level: historic preservation tax credits, low income housing tax credits, new market tax credits, STAR bonds, brownfield grants, livable city grants, and transportation funds.

    At the local level, programs mentioned include capital investment, tax increment financing (TIF), community improvement districts (CID), facade loans/grants, low interest loan pools, and land.

    The last item refers to the fact that Goody Clancy considers it an advantage that the City of Wichita owns a lot of land downtown, as it can control the timing and features of development.

    Missing from this list is any mention of a direct tax to fund downtown redevelopment. But downtown leaders admire the city sales tax used to fund development in downtown Oklahoma City, and some have privately told me that a sales tax would be good for downtown Wichita. I expect to see a sales tax proposed in Wichita, as I don’t believe there is enough funding available through the sources mentioned above to do all that downtown boosters will want to do.

    Supporters of a sales tax for downtown subsidies will use the Intrust Bank Arena as an example of a successful project funded through a sales tax. They’ll say, as did Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson this year, that people didn’t even notice the one cent per dollar sales tax. It’s harmless, they will contend, despite evidence to the contrary. Not to mention that pronouncement of the arena as a sustainable success story is premature.

    Goody Clancy proposes that projects qualify for public assistance through a point system, which is reported on in a Wichita Business Journal article. By meeting established criteria, developers would earn — or not earn — points. Earning a certain level of points would be necessary for the city to consider the application for public assistance, and the number of points earned would help the city justify pouring public assistance into a project. Presumably the point system could help the city rank and prioritize projects that are competing for limited funds.

    Further considerations the city would use in deciding which projects to subsidize include, according to the presentation: team experience, financial qualifications, references, project economics, and public/private leverage ratio.

    The problem is that any point system the city would use would be a system that meets political criteria, not market criteria. We must realize that the incentives and motivations of politicians and city hall bureaucrats are very different from the incentives and constraints that control behavior in markets. As Gene Callahan explains:

    The Public Choice School has pointed out another force … Strong incentives exist for politicians to favor special-interest groups at the expense of the general public. Those upon whom benefits are concentrated are motivated to campaign hard for those benefits.

    Specifically, for downtown redevelopment to be successful, we need to have development that is profitable for the private sector, considering all costs. By subsidizing certain developers according to political criteria the city ignores and distorts the dictates of markets, and capital is misapplied. People make decisions for wrong reasons using incorrect information.

    While some city council members openly speak of the “free market” with disdain and other members pay it lip service only, we must remember that the free market consists of, in Wichita’s case, hundreds of thousands of consumers making decisions every day about where they want to live, work, and play. These decisions are made based on the individual preferences of each person, supplemented by the information the price system supplies.

    The price system is the best way we have to communicate the relative value of things. Hayek explains its importance:

    Fundamentally, in a system in which the knowledge of the relevant facts is dispersed among many people, prices can act to coordinate the separate actions of different people in the same way as subjective values help the individual to coordinate the parts of his plan.

    The price system is a wonderful, almost miraculous system that, as Hayek writes, coordinates the actions of millions. It allows for the process of economic calculation which is at the heart of capitalism. The lack of economic calculation based on a price system is the reason why socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Callahan summarizes what Mises showed the world:

    Mises showed that socialism is incapable of achieving an efficient use of society’s resources, because its economic planners have no means by which to perform economic calculation.

    The point system that Goody Clancy proposes to dish out subsidy is a bypass of the price system and economic calculation. It substitutes the judgment of central planners for free people coordinating activities through the price system. Wichitans should reject this idea.

  • Wichita Bowllagio hearing produces only delay

    Yesterday’s meeting of the Wichita City Council featured a lengthy public hearing for a proposed west-side entertainment development known as Bowllagio. Bowllagio is planned to have a bowling and entertainment center, a boutique hotel, and a restaurant owned by a celebrity television chef.

    The developers of this project propose to make use of $13 million in STAR bond financing. STAR bonds are issued for the immediate benefit of the developers, with the sales tax collected in the district used to pay off the bonds. The project also proposes to be a Community Improvement District, which allows an additional two cents per dollar to be collected in sales tax, again for the benefit of the district.

    The Kansas STAR bond process calls for several steps: First, a local governing body, like the City of Wichita, must approve the concept and set boundaries for the project. This is what yesterday’s agenda item called for. If approved by the council, the Kansas Secretary of Commerce would examine the project to see if it meets statutory criteria. If the Secretary approves the project, the city is then required to prepare a project plan and hold another public hearing concerning whether to adopt the project plan. The project plan must be passed by a two-thirds supermajority of the council.

    One of the elements of the project plan, according to the 2010 Kansas Legislator Briefing Book, is a “marketing study conducted to examine the impact of the special bond project on similar businesses in the projected market area.” The effect of Bowllagio on existing Wichita-area businesses was a major source of concern for both council members and citizens speaking at the public hearing.

    Speaking during the public hearing, Ray Baty, who is manager of a Wichita bowling center, said Bowllagio is not a new concept, but rather one that would compete with existing programs already in Wichita. The C.A.T.S. system, a training system promoted by Bowllagio developers, is actually a portable system, Baty said.

    He contended that introduction of Bowllagio to the market will not grow the market for bowling, but will further divide the existing market, resulting in a loss of revenue and profit for existing bowling centers. He said that bowling centers lose six percent of their customers each year, a trend that he said is national.

    Frank DeSocio, owner of several bowling centers in Wichita, told the council that the bowling training promoted by Bowllagio developers already happens in Wichita at the present. He mentioned five full-time bowling teachers and coaches already working in Wichita bowling centers.

    He added that Wichita does very well in obtaining and hosting tournaments, mentioning 17 PBA live televised tournaments that took place in Wichita, 10 regional events, a BPA womens’ open, six intercollegiate championships that were televised live, and numerous Kansas state high school championships.

    “Everything the Maxwell Group [developer of Bowllagio] claims they want to do is already being done in Wichita by the current bowling centers,” qualifying that he’s speaking only of the bowling side of the Bowllagio proposal, not the restaurants.

    In my remarks to the council, I mentioned that Wichita has had examples of restaurants or other establishments being announced — sometimes by the mayor in his annual state of the city address — but then the development failed to materialize. I expressed concern that we might commit to a large amount of STAR bond financing based on big plans that never advance beyond some small initial stage.

    Susan Estes told the council that “this is an extremely profound day” for the City of Wichita. She asked will the city help one business owner over another business owner in the same industry? She said that Bowllagio has some unique aspects, but it is a bowling alley. Its other entertainment features are also available in Wichita. We are using tax money to compete against existing businesses, she said.

    In response to a question by a homeowner in the project area, the mayor, indicating he believed he speaks for the council, said the council would not support using eminent domain to remove the homeowner from his home.

    During discussion by council members, a subject of controversy was whether approving project boundaries and forwarding the application to the Secretary of Commerce constitutes an endorsement of the project by the City of Wichita. Some council members wanted to pass an ordinance that would establish the boundaries of the district, and then have the Secretary decide whether the project meets the statutory requirements for a STAR bond project. Wichita economic development director Allen Bell mentioned that the council’s endorsement of the project might be a factor the Secretary would consider in determining whether to approve the project.

    A question from Council Member Lavonta Williams elicited Bell’s further opinion that the Secretary is “looking for a signal from the council” regarding its support for the project. Lack of local support, he added, would be taken in a “negative way.” Council Member Paul Gray agreed with this assessment.

    Vice Mayor Jeff Longwell disagreed, saying that all the Secretary needs is a geographic boundary for the proposed project. He contended that the process starts with setting the boundaries, and that other questions are difficult or impossible to answer without doing this. There are too many unknowns, he added, to give this project a formal endorsement at this time.

    Longwell also mentioned a report that showed that the south-central region of Kansas, which includes Wichita, receives fewer state economic development funds, relative to population, than the northeast Kansas region. He said we needed to “equal the playing field.”

    Longwell said he didn’t want to put together a package that would harm existing businesses, saying he wouldn’t vote for the project if an independent study showed that result would happen.

    Council Member Jim Skelton asked about the property taxes the development would pay. Bell replied that the property taxes should increase by a large amount, as the land is vacant now and is planned to receive $95 million of development. He said that while STAR bonds and Community Improvement District financing is proposed for this development, the plan does not include property tax abatements, industrial revenue bonds, tax increment financing, or any other diversion of property taxes.

    Council Member Janet Miller asked if the Kansas STAR bond statutes prohibited adding these other types of incentives to the project. The answer, according to Bell, is that these programs could be added on to this development, as has been done in some Kansas STAR bond districts.

    Later Miller referred to the “lack of information to make an education decision about the project.” She wondered why the developers would not spend “one-tenth of one percent of their $50 million dollar investment” ($50,000) to produce the studies that would give the council the information it needs to decide whether to send the project to the Secretary of Commerce with its support.

    When City Manager Bob Layton suggested a delay to gather more information from the developers, council members readily agreed. Layton said that city staff will visit with the developers, looking for an approach that will make council members comfortable with proceeding, addressing some of the information needs expressed today.

    Due to scheduling, Layton said that this matter would need to appear on next week’s agenda, or there would be a one month delay before it could be considered at a council meeting.

    The council voted unanimously to defer the item for one week, and to keep open the public hearing.

    Analysis

    An important issue to many council members is the potential harmful affect of Bowllagio on existing businesses, particularly bowling centers. Miller’s suggestion that the developers spend the money to have an independent assessment of this performed is entirely sensible.

    But I don’t think a study of that scope can be performed in one week. As it is now, the city will probably rely on information provided by the developers. It must be recognized that they have a $13 million incentive to produce information favorable to their cause. In his remarks, Gray recognized that proof that Bowllagio will not harm existing businesses will not come from “somebody advocating for the project.” It would require a third-party, independent analysis, he said.

    As of now, it is difficult to see how information that will satisfy council members can be produced by next week’s meeting.

    In my opinion, the local bowling center operators are justifiably concerned that a subsidized competitor will harm their business. They were able to show that many of the purportedly unique aspects of the Bowllagio concept are already available in Wichita, and have been for some time.

    Further, it’s not only direct competitors such as bowling centers that we need to be concerned for. Since the development is proposed to include a Mexican restaurant, what will its impact be on existing Mexican restaurants? And not only restaurants offering that cuisine, but all other restaurants?

    In a broader sense, a subsidized business competes with all other businesses in the market for employees and other goods and services that all business firms purchase.

    Longwell’s contention that we can still “kill” the project at a later date if reports come back showing negative impact on local businesses is, in my opinion, an empty promise. If the Kansas Secretary of Commerce approves this project, it would be very difficult for the council to vote against Wichita receiving $13 million in state tax dollars, especially in light of Longwell’s argument that the Wichita area doesn’t receive nearly enough of this economic development money.

    While council members such as Schlapp say they’re in favor of free markets, she and the other council members nearly always vote in favor of intervention in markets. The fact that the city council members have so many questions about the proposal tells us that this plan is, in fact, a form of centralized planning by government.

    As I remarked to the council, developments such as this are portrayed as a success story, in that someone has confidence in Wichita because they’re investing here. But I wonder why these people won’t invest in Wichita unless they receive millions in payments or tax forgiveness from the city, county, school board, and/or state.

    Aren’t the real heroes in Wichita the people — many of them small business owners — who invest in Wichita without the benefit of TIF districts, tax abatements, STAR bonds, or other forms of subsidy or incentive?

    These people, besides facing subsidized competition, additionally have to pay the taxes that make the subsidies to others possible.

    Regarding the mayor’s statement that eminent domain will not be supported for this project: Kansas law does not prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire property in a STAR bond district (K.S.A. 12-17,172).

    If the city wants to assure property owners that their property will not be subject to seizure by eminent domain, the city can add language to that effect in the ordinance. With four city council positions — including the mayorship — up for election next spring, it’s possible that a future city council might not be opposed to the use of eminent domain. This change could take place during the time Bowllagio developers are acquiring property. An ordinance would help prevent this from happening.

    Similarly, if it is not the intent of the developers to seek additional forms of subsidy such as tax increment financing or property tax abatements, appropriate language could be added to the authorizing ordinance.

  • Wichita Warren Theater groundbreaking raises policy issues

    Friday’s groundbreaking of a new Warren Theater and renovation of the existing theater in west Wichita provide an opportunity to revisit some of the public policy issues surrounding Wichita city government and its intervention in the economy in the name of economic development.

    Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and Vice Mayor Jeff Longwell claim that the economic development incentives or subsidies offered to Warren do not cost Wichita taxpayers anything.

    Reading comments left to stories at various media outlets, there is definitely a problem with citizens understanding the nature of the city’s industrial revenue bond program. There is no money being lent by the city, as many citizens seem to believe. Instead, the benefit of the program is the escape from paying property taxes and possibly sales taxes. The fact that tax forgiveness is mixed in with a private loan or bond purchase is definitely a source of confusion. The city should seek to simplify this program, if it intends to continue this practice.

    But what about the claim that tax forgiveness does not cost other taxpayers? Will the new theater make use of city services such as fire and police protection? Will employees of the theater send their children to public schools? Vice mayor Longwell says that the city is not adding new police officers because of the new theater, so there is no additional cost for police protection. At the margin, that may be true — each additional house or building does not require a new policeman be hired. But at some time, additional city services and personnel will be required.

    The city’s practice of liberally granting tax abatements goes against the constant refrain that we must “build up the tax base.” The city’s position is that by “investing” in tax breaks, the city will gain more revenue in the future.

    The fallacy of the city’s investment philosophy can easily be seen. When the city grants tax abatements, there is a cost-benefit analysis that accompanies the proposal. The rationale of this analysis that by giving up tax revenue now, more will flow in at some future time.

    That’s the source of the fallacy. The return to the city and other governmental units is more tax revenue. Is it the purpose of the city to generate more and more tax revenue? Is it productive to grant one taxpayer favored status so that other hapless taxpayers can be soaked instead?

    When a business invests, it does so in order to increase its productive capacity so that it can earn higher future profits, those profits — or losses — being the measure of success of the investment. Government has no ability to calculate profit and loss, and therefore has no way to judge whether its investment has been wise and productive.

    There is also, of course, the concept that private business investment is voluntary, while the action the city takes is not voluntary. Citizens must comply.

    The companies that receive tax breaks are often prominent companies that ask for large tax abatements. It is worth considerable time and effort — and campaign contributions — for these companies to pursue these benefits. Small companies, however, often don’t fit into the various programs the city has. Instead, they face additional taxes to pay for the taxes the city doesn’t collect when it grants incentives and subsidies.

    Recently Alan Cobb wrote of the harm that targeted incentives cause, using Detroit as an example: “While state and local government poured incentives into the Big Three’s trough, the marginal costs of doing business for everyone else crept up.” See Wichita targeted economic development should end.

    An aspect of the incentive or subsidy package granted in this case is a fixed, negotiated, growth in property taxes the renovated theater will pay. There are a few points that deserve discussion. First, the base taxable value for the theater is the present value. The theater owner, however, is spending several million dollars on a renovation of that theater. This, according to the Sedgwick County Appraisers Office, would increase the taxable value of the theater by a large amount.

    But based on the deal struck with the City of Wichita, this increase in value will not figure into the base taxable value and therefore, will not affect the taxes (PILOT, actually) the theater owner will pay.

    Further, the rate of growth in value, 2.3 percent per year, is lower than what might be expected for commercial property to increase in value in many years. This fixed, predictable rate of growth is reminiscent of last year’s Proposition K proposal. The Wichita Eagle rejected this proposal, editorializing: “Over time, this system could result in significant disparities and a disconnect from actual market values, thus likely violating the Kansas Constitution’s requirement of a ‘uniform and equal basis of valuation.’”

    But in this case one politically-favored business was able to receive this benefit. These special deals breed justifiable cynicism and distrust of not only City Hall politicians and bureaucrats but businesses that seek this form of pork-barrel spending through the tax system.

    Finally, the payments the existing theater will make are not taxes, but payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT. These payments are different in character from regular property taxes. Instead of falling under the Kansas property tax law regarding payment and possible sale of the property to pay taxes if the taxpayer falls behind for long enough, PILOTS are more in the form of a contract between the city and the taxpayer. If the taxpayer were to fail to pay, the city would have to sue for breach of contract. If the city should prevail in such a suit, it would stand in line with other creditors instead of taking a preferred position as in a tax sale.

    This is, of course, assuming the city would choose to pursue such a lawsuit. Nothing would require it to do so. As the city has in the past bailed out this theater owner with a no-interest and low-interest loan, we could easily imagine the city deciding to let these missing or late PILOT payments slide by.

    This too assumes that failure to pay PILOT payments as agreed would become public knowledge. The Sedgwick County Treasurer’s office prints lists of delinquent property taxpayers. There is no corresponding list of delinquent PILOT payments.

  • Southwest Airlines topic of Wichita Eagle article

    Sunday’s Wichita Eagle carried a story featuring local elected officials’ reaction to the possibility that Southwest Airlines would start service to Wichita. (City, county officials cautiously weigh subsidy for Southwest Airlines, May 30, 2010)

    A source of controversy is over the payments of public funds that are thought to be necessary to acquire the service. The Eagle article quotes an unnamed source as saying it would take about $3 million in public funds to “get the service up and running.” It is not disclosed whether this is a one-time requirement, or if this is $3 million per year for some specific period, or perhaps forever.

    Wichitans may want to remember that the subsidy paid to AirTran started small and was promoted as a temporary measure until the airline could establish itself in Wichita. The program, however, has grown to a combined $7 million annual payment from the state, county, and city. It seems unlikely that this number will ever drop.

    At one time Wichita was a city known for its entrepreneurs. But recently the New York Times noted that Wichita is known as a “pioneer in the business of paying airlines to continue service.”

    An interesting tidbit in the Eagle story is Wichita City Council Member Sue Schlapp making a distinction between a “subsidy” and an “incentive.” What we offer to Southwest would be an incentive, not a subsidy, she said.

    The overall tone of the article is that Wichita City Council Members and Sedgwick County Commissioners are making a show of concern, wanting to be “realistic,” desiring more details and something “reasonable and feasible.”

    Despite this show of concern and prudence, if this matter comes before these bodies, I’ll be surprised if even one member votes against it.

    One thing this article did not mention is that Charleston, South Carolina was able to lure Southwest without having to pay a subsidy.

    By way of comparison, the Wichita metropolitan area population is 612,683 (2009 estimate), while the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, metropolitan area populations is 659,191. In 2008, there were 780,756 enplanements at the Wichita airport, while there were 1,174,667 at the Charleston airport.

    According to reports, the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates a $139 million economic impact with the arrival of Southwest. An economic impact analysis has been prepared for the City of Wichita, but Wichita officials will not release it, citing an exception in the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA).

  • Amtrak passenger service shown in Wichita

    The possible expansion of Amtrak passenger rail service in Kansas was the topic of a meeting held last night in Wichita.

    Expansion of rail service in Kansas is controversial, at least to some people, in that any form of rail service requires taxpayer involvement to pay for the service. First, taxpayer funding is required to pay for the start-up costs for the service. There are four alternatives being presented for rail service expansion in Kansas, and the start-up costs range from $156 million up to $479 million.

    After this, taxpayer subsidies will be required every year to pay for the ongoing operational costs of providing passenger rail service. The four alternatives would require an annual operating subsidy ranging from $2.1 million up to $6.1 million. Taking the operating subsidy and dividing by the estimated number of passengers for each alternative, the per-passenger subsidy ranges from $35 up to $97 for every passenger who uses the service.

    For three of the alternatives, the operating subsidy required is greater than the revenue the service is expected to generate. For the other alternative, the subsidy and revenue are equal.

    It would be one thing if tickets sales and other revenue sources such as sale of food and beverage paid for most of the cost of providing passenger rail service, and taxpayers were being asked to provide a little boost to get the service started and keep it running until it can sustain itself. But that’s not the case. Taxpayers are being asked to fully fund the start-up costs. Then, they’re expected to pay the majority of ongoing expenses, apparently forever.

    At the meeting, I calculated these per-passenger subsidy figures and presented them to officials from the Kansas Department of Transportation and Amtrak. They seemed to think that this was a novel way of looking at the cost of providing the service. I asked the Amtrak representative why can’t we just increase the price of a ticket by the amount of the per-passenger subsidy? The reply was that if the tickets are too expensive, people will not purchase them.

    Much of the argument of rail supporters boils down to this: since other forms of transportation receive government subsidy, why shouldn’t rail transportation receive a subsidy too?

    The proper response to this argument is first, let’s not expand government intervention in transportation by increasing or adding new forms of subsidy, even if it is to correct a perceived imbalance. Second, let’s get rid of the subsidy for all forms of transportation, so that each form may be evaluated on its total cost by consumers when they decide how to travel.

    The Amtrak representative disputed subsidy figures that I referred to, saying that the study that I found them in has been discredited. These figures show that the federal subsidy for highway passenger travel is negative, meaning that highway drivers are paying their own costs plus more. The subsidy per passenger rail service is much higher than for either commercial or general aviation. The Amtrak representative promised to send me different figures, and I will report on those if I receive them. It may be that when state and local spending on highways is included, the subsidy landscape might look different.

    These subsidy figures are based on the passenger-mile, not total dollars. Supporters of rail subsidies often use total dollars spent instead of spending per passenger-mile because rail receives much less subsidy than other forms of transportation. That’s because so few people travel on passenger rail.

    This year legislation authorizing the Kansas Department of Transportation to establish and implement a passenger rail service program passed both houses nearly unanimously and was signed enthusiastically by the governor. That was an easy vote for legislators, however, as the legislation spends no money. The supplemental note for the bill states “… because the bill does not propose a revenue mechanism for financing any of the activities the bill would authorize, the Kansas Department of Transportation indicates it would not initiate any such activities nor incur any additional expenses.”

    When legislators have to commit taxpayer funds for start-up costs and ongoing funds for passenger subsidies, I suspect the voting will be quite different.

    Reporting on this meeting from KWCH is at Wichitans Give Input on Amtrak Passenger Train Proposals and from KAKE at State Gets Feedback On Passenger Rail Proposal. Related stories on this site are Amtrak, taxpayer burden, should not be expanded in Kansas and Kansas makes unwise bet on passenger rail.

    Kansas Amtrak passenger rail costs

  • In Wichita, will Southwest save our city?

    Talk that low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines might enter the Wichita market has the usual cast of government bureaucrats, centralized planning advocates, and their boosters in a tizzy.

    The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman has Wichita director of airports Victor White saying that if the necessary subsidies are offered, the popular airline will consider serving Wichita.

    (Oops. White actually used the word “incentives,” not “subsidies.” There are some who believe there is a difference in meaning between the two words. These are the types of nuances you have to become comfortable with when politicians and government bureaucrats try to direct and control economic development.)

    Holman’s editorial makes a case for subsidizing another low-cost airline at Wichita’s airport, citing some remarkable economic development statistics:

    Two recent studies supported the view that Southwest would build on the current affordable airfares program in leveraging low fares and boosting ridership at Mid-Continent — forecasting 33.5, 37 and 39 percent increases in airport activity and 7,000 additional direct and indirect jobs over such a carrier’s first three years in Wichita, as well as $29.5 million annually in savings for travelers.

    As I pointed out a few weeks ago, these numbers are not believable. As I wrote two weeks ago, while more air service options are good for Wichita travelers, we need to be suspicious of the lofty claims of thousands of jobs and huge economic impact like the numbers claimed in this case. A few years ago I reported on a whopper of a economic impact figure given for the Wichita airport. It turned it the figures was based on some unrealistic assumptions, and used numbers likely to be counted a second time as part of someone else’s economic impact.

    In the present case, the claim of 7,000 jobs to be created is a very large number. According to figures provided by the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, only one company in the greater Wichita area has over 7,000 employees. The company with an employee count nearest 7,000 is Cessna, with about 6,000 employees.

    Can anyone seriously claim that adding one more airline to the many already serving Wichita will result in the addition of more jobs than what exists at Cessna?

    This is particularly true in that while there is one (or maybe two, depending on your definition) low-cost airlines receiving subsidies to serve Wichita, the other major airlines pretty much meet the discounters’ prices. This was the rational for bringing a low-cost airline to Wichita: by bringing in even one, it would force all other airlines to lower their fares.

    This goal being largely achieved, it’s hard to fathom that adding one more discount airline would have a huge impact.

    These economic development studies deserve scrutiny, and not just by eco-devo boosters and their cheerleaders who believe the government should heap money on anyone or anything that hints they might locate in Wichita — or leave Wichita. I asked Jeremy Hill of Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research if I could see the study that purportedly supports paying for more airline service. He, citing a non-disclosure agreement, would not send me the report or comment on its content. So I have a request pending at city hall.

    There’s another angle to this story that hasn’t been reported in the Wichita Eagle news stories and editorials: Charleston was able to obtain Southwest Airlines service without paying a subsidy. The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper and owned by the same McClatchy Company that owns the Wichita Eagle, reports that there was a lot of wooing, but there were no economic incentives.

    In the Charleston situation, there evidently won’t be the massive state-supplied subsidy as we have in Kansas. But Southwest will still get a leg up: A USA Today story quotes a Charleston airport official saying “Southwest didn’t want a state subsidy, but was interested in the airport’s incentives a temporary waiver of landing fees, up to $10,000 to market new flights, and up to $150,000 for other start-up costs.”

    Correction: The Wichita Eagle reported in its May 13 article that Southwest service in Charleston is not contingent of state subsidies.

  • Wichita economic development claims deserve scrutiny

    Reports that Southwest Airlines may be considering adding service in Wichita have lead to enthusiasm for the economic development that this service would add.

    In the current case, reporting by Molly McMillan of the Wichita Eagle tells of a study produced by Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research. She reports “In a worst-case scenario, the entrance of the airline in the study would add roughly 7,000 direct and indirect jobs in Wichita over a three-year period.”

    An editorial in today’s edition of the Eagle repeats this number.

    While more air service options are good for Wichita travelers, we need to be suspicious of the lofty claims of huge jobs and economic impact like the number claimed in this case.

    In particular, 7,000 jobs is a very large number. According to figures provided by the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, only one company in the greater Wichita area has over 7,000 employees. The company with an employee count nearest 7,000 is Cessna, with about 6,000 employees.

    Can anyone seriously claim that adding one more airline to the many already serving Wichita will result in the addition of more jobs than what exists at Cessna?

    These economic development figures need to be looked at closely. In 2005, I noted in the article Stretching figures strains credibility that the Center for Economic Development and Business Research has overstated the case before. In particular, the center included all the employees of Cessna and Bombardier in calculations of the economic impact of the Wichita airport:

    By reading this study I learned that the employees of Cessna and Bombardier — 12,134 in total — are counted in determining the economic impact of the airport. Why? To quote the study: “While it might appear that manufacturing businesses could be based anywhere in the area, both Cessna and Bombardier require a location with runways and instrumentation structures that allow for flights and flight testing of business jet airplanes.” This is true, but it is quite a stretch to attribute the economic impact of these employees to the airport.

    For one thing, if we count the economic impact of the income of these employees as belonging to the airport, what then do we say about the economic impact of Cessna and Bombardier? We would have to count it as very little, because the impact of their employees’ earnings has been assigned to the airport. This is, of course, assuming that we count the impact of these employees only once.

    Or suppose that Cessna tires of being on the west side of town, so it moves east and starts using Jabara Airport. Would Cessna’s economic impact on Sedgwick County be any different? I think it wouldn’t. But its impact on the Wichita airport would now be zero. Similar reasoning would apply if Cessna built its own runway.