Author: parischamber

                       LionsHead Specialty Tire and Wheel’s new 120,000 SF facility in the NW Industrial Park

the economic landscape

Its time for the Paris Chamber to express a well-meant “Good Job” to the Paris Economic Development Corporation (PEDC).  Despite challenges that comes with ignoring certain economic facts, thereby, to increase a perception and promotion by an oversell of smart planning, hard work, job growth, and the total dollar investments in Paris, the PEDC actually has seen extraordinary success over the past two or three years.

Almost as extraordinary as the lack of transparency.

The March 2023, Universal Fabricating announcement came with an anticipated 100 new quality jobs.

In April 2023, Houston-based Ametsa Packaging, LLC, announced a sugar liquefication and packaging plant and 100 new quality jobs at the former Sara Lee and J. Skinner facility.

Huhtamaki announced its expansion plans in August 2023 for 80 new jobs, increasing their already impressive workforce of 200. This project promises approximately $75 million in new investment for a reported 400,000 square feet of facility expansions and road and rail enhancements. (Huhtamaki’s announcement demonstrates why supporting the existing employer base is important for a community’s economic health.)

The PEDC claimed that over the next 10 years, these projects would infuse an estimated total economic impact of $1 billion into the local economy. And that the “ripple effect” of these investments will stimulate further economic activity.

“Enhancing our economic landscape”, the PEDC celebrated projects such as the Texas Department of Transportation on their new district headquarters in the PEDC-owned Gene Stallings Business Park, Delco’s grand opening of a state-of-the-art 550,000 SF facility on HWY 82 West, as well as the above LionsHead Specialty Tire and Wheel’s locating (the best-looking industrial building in Paris, [our opinion], closely followed by the Texas Highway Department’s new building, which as a government project is not subject to financial limits.)

All this, of course, is worthy of praise for a job well-done, even if other towns in the Dallas metroplex are seeing much greater job and residential growth. It doesn’t need, however, the exaggeration, nor the fuzzy obfuscation, which ignores obvious facts.

The objective facts:

Since 1993, when voters approved tax-funding the PEDC, General Plastic, Turner Industries, Oliver Rubber, Westinghouse, General Electric, and others are no longer here; those jobs are gone; payrolls missing in action. But all those jobs, and others from the numerous recent business closings, must be deducted from the number of new jobs being reported in order to have a half-way decent understanding of where we are in NET job creation.

Past payrolls are NOT objectively compared to current ones. Payrolls, investments, property taxes and sales tax receipts are subject to inflationary figures, which, in examination, are subjective.

Objectivity demands that if you are taking credit for every new gain, you must take credit for every loss.

But the PEDC is claiming credit for a billion dollar economic impact over the next ten years – not counting job loss, property tax abatement, misplaced priorities, plus an average $3 million PEDC budget cost (and $93 million for the 31-years its been in operation).

Evidently, the PEDC is the only entity in the economic landscape that doesn’t have to consider expenses.

Doing Better

Regardless, the PEDC has justified its existence, even if Paris might have been better served by spending the money on creating local residential improvements.

Or picking up the trash and cutting weeds in all of the economic landscape.

Maybe then, we wouldn’t have to give profitable firms money to come to Paris; they’d come because they wanted to…

Businesses need employees in a town that the management wants to live in.

 

                                                      return to      PARIS TEXAS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

                  Links:

          Goosey Gander 

          29-Years of Cronyism

          Six Uncomfortable Truths, plus one:

How much benefit-bang for your tax dollars are you actually getting?

Do you – like the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce – ever wonder just how much is the actual benefit from taxes? For each of the previous eight years, budgets for the City of Paris, Texas, have increased, just as they have in most communities.                               

Ultimately, clear evidence on how much money should be spent, and on what, remains elusive. And how much time can you afford to waste trying to wade through two or three hundred boring pages of government PDF filled with obscure acronyms and confusing charts?

Budgets are complicated—they take many twists and turns—and plenty of info is buried under different boxes and buckets.

The City of Paris budget grew at a compounded 3% annually rate for each of the previous 3-years. Now, it jumps to 4.28%, as Administrative costs for two non-needed assistant city managers and a public information officer, plus support personnel, must be covered. And there is a planned $128 million ($259,201,276 million w/interest) over-priced wastewater treatment plant that will be an excuse to increase the budget for years to come.

But if a city’s budget is growing as its population is decreasing, shouldn’t some benefits from spending need questioning​?

Most Texas’ communities have gained population, but the Paris population dropped from the 2000 high of 25,898 down to 24,476 in 2020, according to the U. S. Census.

This in a period when Texas gained 4.3 million new residents, the largest population increase of all 50-states: 20,851,820 (2000) to 29,145,505 (2024), a 22.8% gain. The state budget in the same time period, however, went from $99 billion (increased teacher’s pay $3,000 annually and promised a $1.7 billion tax cut) to $221 billion – a 223% increase. (The 2024-25 budget increased to $321.3 billion.)

Paris’ population numbers were saved by the 1.3% increase in Lamar County growth – from 49,822 in 2010 to 50,484 in 2020.

Unfortunately, 18.2-percent of in-city Paris families live in poverty today – and the percentage is growing; thanks to government.

Making matters worse, those living in Paris, age 65-and over, have increased from 16.7% in 2010 to 19.2%.

How much actual benefit do they get in taxes?

Politicians – governments – cheat. Legislation is written so that legislative members can say they reduced taxes, while increasing taxes. Texas cities are limited to a 3% annual property tax increase, politicians claim. They lie and they know that they are lying. So, how much actual benefit to they get in taxes?

Their laws allow governmental units to create several budgets: an Original, an Amended and an Actual Budget.

Then, there is the General Fund—the main pot which includes police, public works, etc.—an Enterprise Funds (items that function like a business, such as water and sewer fees, but are part of the local government. Some of these can get confusing because some are owned by government but managed by another party, like trash pick-up and disposal).

There is a Capital fund, where you have to watch out for things like debt, which often hides in all sorts of places. And pay attention to “inter-fund transfers”— where money is moved from one bucket to another.

Generally, Paris brags about the inflation-increases in retail sales or another point added to the Hotel Occupancy Tax, and other items, which are not counted as a “property” tax, but adds to government spending.

Our city government, like most governments, spends too much on amenities, which means we’re not all benefiting from taxes as much as we should . . .

“Experts” in government know that “As citizens often lack experience in the public sector and finance, citizens tend to have difficulty understanding how government works.”

Ronald Reagan knew: “Government is not your friend…”

But people in government know those not in government are stupid. THEY know what’s best for us!

Government is the nation’s largest employer. How do you think those 22-million employees vote? Taxes pay their salaries, as well as retirement, health costs, and other perks. Are their decisions based on your interests or “self-interest”?

Do you really think that the law-makers, who create laws that are not in the best interest of those they were elected to serve, don’t know what they’re doing?

We’re not getting our money’s worth when it comes to taxes; however, when it comes to global socialism, we’re getting what we pay for . . .

 

return to Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

                           Links:

                                   You Don’t Stiff Your Customers

                                  “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”

                                   Plans, Snowflakes and Compromise

 

FOUR EXISTING FACTS in Paris, Texas:

One, a planned Internet-delivery service doesn’t need a government franchise

Two, every government door welcomes a monopoly or conglomerates making significant campaign contributions

Three, government takes care of government

Four, the Paris Texas Chamber a few years ago reported that the City of Paris had approximately $600,000 on hand from an Internet-fee, and wanted to spend the money on a public cable-sponsored channel and a public information officer. (Public meaning government.) The Paris Texas Chamber flatly stated that these were two terrible ideas.

We, now, repeat it.

(Note: Basically, the fee [1% of annual receipts] was authorized by the state [as a buy-off of local city control over local franchising] in exchange for the state taking control of all licensing of or permission for [franchising] telecommunication firms to do business in Texas.)

A government idea is like a flea on a dog: Its not turning the dog loose.

The last city manager of Paris, Texas – who left with more then what he had when he applied for the job and the city has less – sold a majority of the city council members some really dumb ideas: Including hiring two assistant city managers (to do what he asked to be hired to do), when Paris was losing in-city population; getting rid of employees by switching trash pickup to a private firm; refusing restoration of three or four key  downtown historical buildings (to show how smart he was); to employing a “Public Information Officer” – who probably is a nice guy who means well. But Paris doesn’t need someone selling more government.

Now, the City of Paris has over $865,200 in the cable-fee account, which can only be spent on equipment. And as it is a government rule, the equipment is communications-related stuff. 

As we repeatedly note, government takes care of government.

So, outside the basic four existing facts, legislators – the state cupcakes and the dangerous socialists getting rich in Nutland, D. C – come up with “public information channels” – which franchised cable providers must make available to local communities when requested.

These are actually PEG (Public, Educational and Government) Channels. They use the ‘fee” (tax money) collected by “forced compliance” from the cable subscribers, to sell local yokels more government. Examples being: pleas for what every department of government sees as needed; a 24-hour bulletin board offering various content about glorious things; professionally produced ‘free videos’ – some of which costs millions of tax-dollars to make – about services, future projects, and wonderful ‘progressive’ individuals; commercials and editorials about the magnificent things local, state and national governmental units are doing; professionally filmed canned debates about how to destroy the constitution or best serve some ‘special’ deserving group; snake oil sermons on how grateful us poor creatures who are not members of government must be to a benevolent government that provides us everything; and lots of science-fiction on the wonderful world of Paris, Texas.

As we recommended years ago, the funds should be used to create a wireless internet network with no-costs access within the city limits. Use the funds for a worthwhile purpose. The state claims that a local community cannot do it, but it can be done – and is being done. A community may not have the state’s permission to charge for access, but that, too, is being done. 

Regardless of any four existing facts, all the gravy doesn’t belong to the big cities or to the 8 cable Internet providers in Texas.

Paris needs to be creating opportunities for all citizens, not promoting more government, which needs limiting.

And it would be a home run for the downtown area.

 

return to     Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

                                                                                                        links:  Private-Public Partnerships

                                                                                                                         The Objective Reality

                                                                                                                                Snake Oil

                                                                                                                              Incentivizing