The Challenge
Understanding State Government investment and spending have always been a challenge for citizens. Seeing how and where tax dollars are allocated across the state requires hours of research, digging through ambiguous government files and cleaning data. How do we know if State Government investment is efficient? Where could it be more efficient?
Background
Analyzing government data from 2003 to 2015, the state of Iowa has given $737.51 million dollars in total state assistance to various companies within the state to drive economic growth. Total state assistance is composed of direct assistance and tax benefits. A total of 348 economic projects began within those thirteen years with only 2.98 jobs created per $100,000 of total state assistance. With such a relatively expensive efficiency ratio, I wanted to understand geographical performance within Iowa.
The Solution
To solve this issue, I have created a dashboard surrounding the investment effectiveness in the state of Iowa. In the last several years Iowa has invested money in the form of grants and tax breaks to companies across the state with the goal of creating jobs. After some research, I was able to find that Jefferson County has a relatively high job creation per dollar spent but is also very relatively underfunded. This poses an opportunity for Iowa and Jefferson County to spend money more efficiently.
Use the dashboard for yourself to compare Jefferson to other counties in Iowa.
Maurice Butts
