Some Ohio companies that promised to create jobs in exchange for state grants haven't totally delivered.....so state Development Department officials have written them, requesting some of the money back. Nate Green heads the Strategic Business Investment Division and gives details about the clawbacks in this interview with statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen.
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Green: We're dealing eleven companies across the state of Ohio. The grants that we had committed to them amounted to $1,200,000 across those eleven companies. And because they weren't able to meet their job commitments we clawed back $900,000 of that $1,200,000. Cohen: Are these examples where these companies did produce some jobs but just not as many as they promised? Green: That's exactly right, Bill. Of the eleven companies the aggregate is about 2,200 jobs they had committed to creating. And, instead of creating 2,200 they ended up creating 750 or roughly 750. So, there certainly is success here that can be seen. I mean 750 jobs were created for citizens of the state of Ohio and so we didn't, we didn't clawback everything. We clawed back a percentage based on jobs they didn't create. Cohen: The image that Republicans often portray, and this is a Republican administration, is that they want to be friendly to business. How does that jibe with that? Green: Well, you know Bill, we do want to be friendly to business and we are being friendly to business and we have certainly made it a goal to speed up how we make decisions. But this is saying you know what' these are taxpayer dollars. We have to be accountable. We've got to be good stewards of those dollars and yeah we want to be really friendly to you businesses. But we also expect something in return. And that thing that we expect in return is jobs and unfortunately if you don't create the jobs and unfortunately if you don't create the jobs we're going to look to get those taxpayer dollars back.