Governor Patrick to outline $100M economic development bill
With just months left in office, Gov. Deval Patrick will put forward a $100 million plan today intended to spur job and economic growth by capitalizing on the talent in Massachusetts and fostering growth in the start-up market as the state emerges from a nationwide recession that shaped much of his governorship.
The bill Patrick plans to file would offer enhanced incentives to companies doing research and product development, expand opportunities for internships and boost the state’s international marketing efforts to lure tourists and business. It will also suggest an end to tech non-compete agreements aimed at opening up more job movement in the sector.
The governor will also recommend that legal limits on the number of available liquor licenses be removed to give local authorities control over how many licenses are awarded to bars and restaurants in their communities.
“We are a more prosperous, more promising and more just Commonwealth for more people today than we were eight years ago. But now is no time to rest on our laurels,” Patrick said in a statement. “I am convinced that we can reach more residents and accelerate job and wealth creation, indeed that we can position ourselves to sustain our growth for many more years.”
Patrick plans to outline his proposals in remarks kicking off his administration’s second annual economic development summit this morning at the Newton Marriott hotel.
The House on Wednesday released a rewrite of Patrick's budget, and legislative leaders have largely been charting their own course this session with an eye toward to the November elections when a new governor and Legislature will be elected. There are less than four months remaining before lawmakers wrap up formal business for the year.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo has also had his eye on producing an economic development bill this session, and the Winthrop Democrat recently told the News Service that he has asked Rep. Joseph Wagner to begin studying a number of possible ideas that House leaders could focus on in May after the House budget process is complete.
Patrick will also announce a new program to be run through the Mass Tech Collaborative that would place highly-skilled international students who are eligible for special non-immigrant work visas, but unable to obtain one because of federal caps, in “global entrepreneur in residence” positions at public and private colleges here.
Patrick also plans to file legislation that proposes to eliminate non-competition agreements and adopt the Uniform Trade Secrets Act intended to help innovative start-up businesses grow and mature.
Though the state’s unemployment rate in March dropped to6.5 percent, its lowest level since November 2008, Patrick’s plan seeks to continue the positive progress by extending business incentives to certain types of companies that promise to create new jobs regardless of the size of capital investment in the company.
Qualifying high-tech companies would receive grants to hire interns to provide students with work experience, while new capital funding would be directed to the state’s public venture capital investment agency. The state’s research and development tax credit program also would be restructured to reward companies with growing expenses and offer smaller credits to companies with declining research and development expenses.
To prepare the state’s workforce for the new jobs the Patrick administration hopes to create, the governor’s bill calls for the creation of a “middle skills” job training grant fund for careers in advanced manufacturing and information technology.
Further investments in the 26 so-called “Gateway Cities,” which includes Fitchburg, Leominster and Worcester, would come in the form of capital lending to small businesses through the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, a new MassDevelopment fund to support collaborative workspaces in urban centers, as well as incentives to promote market rate housing in these cities.
Funding would also be set aside in the bill for the brownfields redevelopment fund, which many cities use to repurpose former industrial and manufacturing sites that have become polluted.
The state’s Infrastructure Investment Inventive program (I-Cubed), which provides innovative financing for infrastructure projects expected to leverage significant economic investment, would also be expanded under Patrick’s plans. The plan would authorize a single community to have more than three projects funded under the I-Cubed program and increase the amount available for projects that are part of the program.
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