Real growth value a key economic indicator

When you work for a 15-member board of directors who check in periodically over the course of the month, it is very important to have a clear vision of what they expect you to be working on in the days and weeks around those meetings. Aurora Development Corporation (ADC) has always been very clear on its mission: Improving the economic conditions of Hamilton County Nebraska by encouraging investments in agriculture, manufacturing, business, housing and community facilities, thus fostering increased employment opportunities. 
If you pull back the layers of this mission statement, it boils down to growing the community’s economy, job opportunities and tax base by bringing a variety of businesses and industries to the area. I have previously discussed how we work towards this effort at ADC and last month I specifically pointed out the recent growth in our employment numbers, so let’s focus on how we know if we are growing the tax base.  
Each year in August as our local taxing entities (city, county, school, etc.) are setting their budgets for the coming year, the county assessor posts the certification of taxable value for each entity.  Different individuals and organizations will look through this information for different reasons, but from an economic development standpoint, I am most interested in seeing the real growth value. This is the data that tells us how much value we added to the tax base over the past year due to individuals, organizations and companies building and expanding in Hamilton County.  
The Aurora News-Register does a great job of reporting these numbers each year, so it is already old news that Hamilton County’s growth percentage was 3.9 and the City of Aurora’s was a little higher at 4.63 percent this year. At the county level that is $154.7 million in additional taxable value pushing a cumulative total to $3.96 billion.  
There are multiple reasons why ADC cares about and tracks the growth percentage and taxable value, but I will focus on the two primary reasons.  First, we want to be able to quantify the work that we do each day. Seeing this development through the growth in the tax base shows us where those key investments are happening in the county and provides us with the value they are worth from a real estate perspective.  
Secondly, the growth percentage shows some added wiggle room for the budgets of our taxing entities. It is no secret that the cost of living rises each year, and our taxing entities absorb those costs just like businesses and individuals do in their own budgets. By growing the tax base, we are giving them an avenue to pay for these increases with the new growth instead of needing to increase the taxes of the current tax base.    
Now, I realize this is a massive oversimplification of the valuation and property tax discussion, but at the root of the issue, this is where economic development joins the conversation and the reason we work so hard to grow our community.  

KELSEY BERGEN serves as executive director of the Aurora Development Corporation. She can be reached at kelsey@growaurora.com