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GOEO PROVIDES PROGRAMS & RESOURCES FOR RURAL COMMUNITY
BY: UTAH GOVERNOR'S OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
For nearly 20 years, the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) has administered dozens of programs that support rural communities. While effective at times, many of these programs failed to produce the desired economic results. Over the past two years, however, state leaders re-envisioned, consolidated, and significantly improved rural programs resulting in greater economic opportunities throughout all corners of the state.
Before 2021, the state’s rural toolkit consisted of many programs that temporarily supported rural communities. These programs supplied quick short-term relief but rarely solved the broader, more complex challenges that rural communities faced.
“Some programs were so limited in their scope that only communities under a specific population or median income level could access state resources,” said Ryan Starks, Go Utah’s managing director of growth and innovation. “In some rural counties, one municipality could qualify for state programs while others could not.”
Rural communities within larger counties were ineligible to apply for funding, Starks notes, including Huntsville, Utah, a small town within the beautiful Ogden Valley. This booming town of 585 residents — the very definition of rural — could not access state resources to support its local economy due to its belonging to urban Weber County.
The state’s well-intended approach to rural economic development lacked the appropriate structure to provide local communities with the resources needed to address their specific challenges — not a successful formula for activating rural prosperity.
ENCOURAGING INNOVATION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
To participate in the program, rural counties must establish a community economic development board composed of city, county, workforce development, and business leaders. The board then creates a locally driven economic development plan and submits the plan to the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity for review. The state then becomes partners — and not sole proprietors — with communities in supporting and executing locally driven strategies to create lasting economic benefits.
In 2021, newly elected Gov. Spencer J. Cox released the One Utah Roadmap, which served as a guide for rethinking the state’s approach to rural economic development. Among the pillars of the roadmap are Economic Advancement and Rural Matters. These two priorities signaled a new approach to the state’s economic strategy and included urban and rural parts. A new, innovative plan to support rural economic development through a bottom-up approach driven by local communities followed.
With the support of Gov. Cox and the Utah State Legislature, Utah transformed and consolidated its legacy rural programs into the Rural Opportunity Fund. This program empowers local communities to address unique economic needs by accessing state resources.
Some communities utilized the Rural Opportunity Fund to augment their attainable housing, workforce development, and business attraction efforts, while others have created transportation plans, business summits, and community engagement trainings.
An advantage of the program is that communities may also leverage their rural opportunity funds to attract additional grant monies from various federal agencies, including the United States Economic Development Agency and the United States Department of Agriculture.
“This new approach to supporting rural growth has fundamentally transformed the ways that rural communities are solving complex challenges,” Starks said. “The Rural Opportunity Fund empowered communities to collaborate with the state as partners in innovation.”
RETHINKING INCENTIVES AND SMART GROWTH
In addition to catalyzing locally-driven economic development strategies, rural communities may now better utilize the business incentive tool called the Economic Development Tax Increment Financing (EDTIF) program. This program enables qualifying businesses to reduce their marginal tax rate post-performance.
Before 2021, the EDTIF’s reach extended primarily to urban counties where the state has experienced significant growth. With the launch of the Rural Matters initiative within the One Utah Roadmap and thanks to the support of the Utah legislature, the EDTIF program now includes a rural component (REDTIF) that enables companies to expand into rural parts of the state.
To qualify for the REDTIF program, businesses must create high-paying jobs while investing significant capital into the project. Additionally, the business should be part of one of the following key industries, which pull other segments of the economy forward:
1. Advanced Manufacturing
2. Aerospace and Defense
3. Financial Services
4. Life Sciences and Health Care Innovation
5. Software Development and Information Technology
RURAL UTAH’S FUTURE IS BRIGHT
Before the state revised the EDTIF program to be more accommodating to rural companies, only a handful of businesses qualified for the REDTIF incentive in the previous decade. Since the EDTIF revision, however, 15 companies have expanded into rural parts of Utah in the first year. Now, approximately two-thirds of all business expansions in urban and rural parts of the state are from Utah-based companies.
Rural communities are central to Utah’s economic success. Now, more than ever, state leaders are taking proactive steps to empower rural areas to succeed by utilizing better tools, accessing richer resources and controlling their local needs. By working together as a One Utah team, the future of Utah’s cherished rural communities is bright.
