Rural Development

Expanding opportunity for business and infrastructure into Utah’s rural communities.

The Rural Development Program is an advocate of and provides support to Utah’s rural communities and businesses and is the conduit for rural Utah to other GOED and State resources. Through partners like the Governor’s Rural Partnership Board, with representation from business, industry, government, and from all corners of the state, we educate and raise awareness for rural needs, define economic barriers, and bring these issues to light with the Governor, the Utah Legislature and other state and federal agencies.

GOED partnering with USU Extension has initiated many seminars and workshops, coordinated programs plus a statewide quarterly internet Webcast including GOED and USU Extension programs and the newly created USTAR initiative. The last web cast of 2007 will originate from Kanab. The rural office continues to support the statewide network of local economic development professionals. Outreach services continue to be formed with custom fit training, manufacturing partnerships, the Utah Alliance, cluster development, business recruiting and incentives, Utah Science Technology and Research, Utah Department of Community and Culture and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. Through these networking efforts, the rural development office is leading the organization and implementation of statewide business resource centers.

We partner annually with the Center for Rural Life to co-host the annual Rural Summit. This year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of this rural event in Cedar City.

The Rural Development Office also administers two statutory business tax credit programs.

Utah Enterprise Zone Program allows non retail businesses, located in locally defined and state approved geographical zones, tax credits for new investment in plant and equipment and for new full time permanent jobs.

The majority of Utah’s communities are small.

This year the Rural Office is implementing a new economic development tool, Rural Development Grants, to assist communities located in remote and disadvantaged areas facilitate their economic

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Recycling Market Development Zones allow limited tax credits to individuals and businesses for investing in plant, equipment and creating jobs, in recycling companies and manufacturers that use recycled commodities in their manufacturing processes.

This year the Rural Office is implementing a new economic development tool, Rural Development Grants, to assist communities located in remote and disadvantaged areas facilitate their economic development visions.

During the last legislative session, the rural development office was successful in expanding the Industrial Assistance Fund to provide incentives for smaller Utah rural businesses. The grants will be focused on companies that create higher paying jobs and their associated infrastructure needs.

We will continue to advocate rural education initiatives by supporting access to baccalaureate degree program in our smaller communities. This last year the legislature provided 7 million dollars for Utah State University to expand its degree programs in rural Utah. The focus of this effort is to increase the number of business degrees in our smaller counties.

Providing and upgrading rural infrastructure has always been a priority for the rural office and a necessity for small communities. This year the legislature provided funds to assist underserved area with wire based high speed internet. We partner with federal and other state agencies to assist with many community infrastructure needs.

Our health care initiative stimulated the appointment of an executive director for the Utah Health Insurance Exchange. Individual and small businesses will have more access to affordable health insurance options through the exchange program.

The state is experiencing unprecedented economic activity, unemployment has been at an all time low. However, many rural counties still have not been able to share in all the economic growth factors and have economic barriers to overcome. The rural development office works with local governments to assist with economic barrier identification and distress factor mitigation strategies.

Eligible Utah counties for Rural Development Grants

Utah counties by distress factors