Milwaukee Post
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/100931
10 ��� Milwaukee Post ��� December 28, 2012 OPINION Walker must get WEDC moving on jobs Milwaukee residency rules need to go Because of circumstances largely beyond his control, Governor Walker is having a hard time living up to his commitments on job creation. With a still-sluggish national economy new taxes on the way and the , huge job killer called Obamacare, there���s only so much any governor can do. Still, job creation is, and ought to be, Walker���s primary focus. For him to succeed, the performance of the state agency he created has to improve. Various news stories have focused on failures of employees of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to track missed payments on loans that were originated by Walker���s predecessor, Jim Doyle. But the real problem at the WEDC isn���t bureaucratic sloppiness but lack of expertise in job creation and a timid approach by the employees in the agency . One gets the impression that the WEDC���s employees are so terrified of making a mis- STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE MARK BELLING take on a company that they are afraid to take any risks. This is a recipe for failure. Any start-up or expansion is fraught with risks. That���s how business works. You can���t hit home runs if you aren���t willing to risk a few strikeouts. Anecdotal evidence I���m hearing is that the WEDC���s staff is looking for reasons not to make deals, fearing they may be partnering with a flop. If that���s their attitude, they are literally useless and the agency ought to be dismantled. Other states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Texas are becoming legendary at their job recruitment and employee wooing. To compete with states that are really trying, Walker and his staff need to be even more bold. We still have a bad tax structure and our workforce remains highly unionized. Even worse, the state has a cancerous situation with Democrat politicians bent on destroying Milwaukee businesses (reference my recent columns on Palermo���s). To overcome these obstacles, our efforts have to be better than those of Louisiana and Texas. A big part of the problem is that people savvy in corporate finance are making $250,000 and up in the private sector. And $80,000-a-year bureaucrats who���ve never worked a day in corporate America are just in too deep. This may explain the failure of Walker���s hand-picked manager of the WEDC, Ryan Murray to bring home a sin, gle deal of note. If Murray can���t kick-start the WEDC staff ought of its timid approach, the governor needs to find someone who will. The alternative would be to simply contract out some of this work to financial experts who know what they are doing. All is not lost. The state���s unemployment rate is down to 6.7 percent, a full point below the national average. More than 10,000 new jobs were created in November alone. Walker himself is obsessed with job creation. He���s constantly showing up at or talking to state businesses. Unlike Doyle, who couldn���t be bothered with private-sector growth issues, Walker has made it almost an obsession. But good intentions aren���t enough. The WEDC needs to start telling businesses what the state can do for them instead of nitpicking them to death. It���s true Democrats and the anti-Walker state media will harp on any WEDC deal that goes south. But it���s also true that if we don���t make some major scores on economic development in the next year, those same critics will rip Walker for not living up to his jobs vows. The governor needs to kick some WEDC butt and get the agency out of its lethargy . Moving the offices out of Madison would be a good start. One guy who seems to understand economic development is Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele. That���s why he fought so hard to keep an economic development director, Brian Taffora, who refused to comply with the county���s residency requirement and move out of Ozaukee County . Abele felt Taffora was so good that the rules should be bent for him. This misses the point. It���s hard to justify breaking the rules for one talented employee even if his job is more important than just about anybody else. The real problem is the rule itself. The city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County still mandate that all employees live within city (for city workers) or county boundaries. Virtually no other local community is stupid enough to do this. The residency rules need to be abolished. Even though public employee unions would love to get rid of the residency rules, they haven���t been able to convince their Democrat pals to support them. And their leaders are too stubborn to work with Republicans even on an issue they agree on. Here���s how ludicrous the rules are. If two married public employees worked in different communities that both had residency rules, one would have to quit or they���d have to live in different homes to comply with the rules. Quality workers are in demand in today���s skill-driven society Guys like . Taffora, who have unique skills, can call their own shots and are not going to put up with inane rules that tell them where they can, and cannot, live. That���s why virtually no suburban community in our area has rules as dumb as those in place in the city and county of Milwaukee. (Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post. Send your personal correspondences to Mark Belling at Clear Channel Communications, c/o WISN, 12100 W. Howard Ave., Greenfield, WI 53228). *** 229713063 CHRISTMAS DELAYS POWER POINTS RESULTS OVER 1,700��� of HD TVs! Group Happy Hour FREE Nacho Bar, Bucket Specials and more... 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