Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine mixes with the crowd Wednesday at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center, where members of his cabinet gathered to begin a day. Staff photo / Renee Fox

CANFIELD — Ohio’s governor and the head of the state’s private economic development arm spoke Wednesday about efforts to attract job-creating investors to the area.

But they offered mixed answers when asked what the governor’s office or JobsOhio can do to ensure the jobs pay wages that a person can raise a family on.

Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and members of DeWine’s cabinet gathered at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center, starting a flurry of meetings with local officials so they could listen to the area’s residents and hear of their concerns and successes.

DeWine, Husted and JP Nauseef , the JobsOhio chief investment officer and president, addressed the crowded room before students and school officials had a turn to talk about the school’s mission. To have a trained and ready workforce requires multiple learning tracks for young people entering the workforce — trade schools and technical schools are a necessary part of the mix, the speakers stressed.

DeWine praised the area’s workforce.

“We are very competitive. We think that, frankly, here in Ohio, in the Mahoning Valley, we have a great workforce. We have people who get up every morning and go to work,” DeWine said.

DeWine stressed several times: “There is no better place to raise a family, there is no better place start a business , there is no better quality of life than here in Ohio.”

WAGES AND JOBS

When speaking to reporters separately, however, DeWine and Nauseef’s responses were inconsistent on what they can do to ensure companies offer incentive packages to pay their employees living wages.

“I don’t know that JobsOhio can ensure any of those things. But, we’re going to continue working with our partners, investors and those people interested in making investments in the automotive industry and additive manufacturing … to bring the most and best opportunities we can identify,” Nauseef said.

DeWine said: “We put a premium on jobs so people can make a living and actually raise a family. So look at the JobsOhio criteria. That is certainly one of the top criteria.”

While some communities require locally calculated living wage minimums be paid by companies seeking breaks from taxes in order to set up shop, the practice is rare in Ohio.

JobsOhio and the state’s Development Services Agency have been criticized for offering large incentive packages for companies to come to the state, without getting any guarantees the jobs the companies create are jobs a person can raise a family on, and sometimes even cost other taxpayers money because their employees qualify for low-income benefits.

CRITICISM

Ohio Policy Matters’ director of research Zach Schiller has criticized the deals made with Amazon for millions of dollars in incentives to set up facilities in Ohio over the last couple of years, though Amazon intended on coming to Ohio anyway in order to keep delivery speed promises to customers.

“The state and local tax incentives Amazon receives doesn’t include the tens of thousands of dollars its Ohio workers need each month in food benefits,” Schiller said at the time of a 2018 report. “When you consider that, the subsidies are even larger.”

The research institute argued too many Ohioans are paid sub-living wages.

The state dismisses more in potential tax bills for companies in the name of development than it spends on health and human services, according to an Ohio Policy Matters report authored by Schiller and Wendy Patton in September.

“Next fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2020, Ohio will forgo nearly $9.8 billion in state tax exemptions, credits and deductions known as tax expenditures. The value of revenue lost to tax breaks will grow by $1.3 billion in 2020-21 compared to the prior two-year budget period, and will have grown by 18 percent over the decade between 2012 and 2021, adjusted for inflation,” the report states.

About 64 percent of the tax breaks go toward businesses and economic development, about $5.7 billion, and the number is expected to increase by 6.3 percent in the next year or two, according to the report.

“Tax expenditures use public resources. They are a policy choice. Their rapid growth means less is available for basic public services, like good schools, safe bridges, and affordable college. Tax breaks often benefit the wealthy or corporations, which contributes to the upside-down structure of Ohio’s state and local tax code,” the report argues.