Originally Posted by
PQZ
Because the state enabling legislation does not allow private non-profits to collect and expend public tax revenues. DDA can and are tightly reguilated by the state.
The DEGC is a private non-profit whose activities are limited to attraction and retention activities i.e. marketing. They can go to a trade show and recruit a business. They can discuss private matters with the business such as the firms financial records, the firms future investment plans and even proprietary information such as patents. All of this is done to protect the confidentiality of the company. Otherwise, if a software maker met with a public body and shared their plans for new software as a justification for asking for a tax abatement to build a new HQ, those software plans become public record.
The flip sideof the coin is that the DEGC cannot commit ANY public dollars. That can only be done by public agencies like the DDA, EDC, DBRA, TIFA or NDC. All of their investments are public, are discussed in public meetings and approved by City Counil. Often they need state approval as well. DEGC will meet with and vet the developer / client /investor and then direct them to the appropriate agency for support if viable.This way, the public investment is public and proprietary information is kept confidential. This structure is ubiquitous across the country at the state, regional, county and municipal level.
As a side note, the DEGC employs a staff that they then subcontract on a project by project basis to the various authorities.
An engineer may be hired by DEGC but the employee will work solely on DDA and EDC projects, so the entirely of their work is public record as the DEGC is being reimbursed for the wages by a line item in the project budgets. This is a very effective way to reduce staffing costs for the agencies. For example, the DDA had huge staffing needs for two years prior to the Superbowl for engineers and project managers to complete the streetscapes. Instead of overpaying for a private firm to do the work or hiring then terminating engineers, the DEGC was able to reassign engineering / project staff to the DDA projects from EDC projects that were wrapping up. Once the DDA Superbowl projects wrapped up, some of that staff began working on the East Riverfront.
Its perfectly legal, perfectly ethical and quite a clever way to reduce staff and overhead costs for projects while maintaining continuity. Its not nefarious, its not murky. Its effecient and straightforward.