Capitolwire: Corbett says more start-up help, regional input will spur job creation.

As reported by Capitolwire Staff Reporter:  Laura Olson

ALTOONA (March 9) — Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett says a key piece of his administration’s job-creation plan would be to work with the state’s private investors to expand the funding and resources available to new businesses.

Making it easier to access start-up funds will encourage developing companies to plant roots in Pennsylvania, Corbett said at a Tuesday campaign event.

Corbett, who serves as state attorney general, announced this first plank of his economic development plan at the site of an Altoona company that created and manufacturers a health-care management device.

His plan for economic development focused on “innovation” and included ideas on how to increase partnerships with the private sector and research universities, improve the state’s broadband network, and create regional development loan funds.

These strategies, Corbett said, will help the state “by having the shortest time from idea to market launch.”

“This is the way that government is supposed to help businesses — supply it some money, … not create the jobs themselves for government jobs, but allow the private industry to create the jobs,” Corbett said.

A spokesman for his primary opponent, state Rep. Sam Rohrer, R-Berks, said those ideas don’t address some of the state’s broad economic challenges.

Corbett will be rolling out other sections of his economic development plan — such as proposals more specifically related to the state’s workforce, regional economies and small businesses — in the coming weeks.

Before outlining his development plan, Corbett toured INRange Systems, Inc., which manufactures EMMA — an at-home device that distributes medications for patients who cannot manage their own prescriptions.

Patients pick up a blister card containing their medication from their local pharmacy, and insert the card into the machine. The device reminds them when it is time to take a prescription, and dispenses the pills to prevent overmedicating or missed doses.

The company has 20 employees, and designed and mostly builds the product locally, said president and co-founder Chris Bossi. About 150 of the machines are currently in use, many of which are being used at military and veterans hospitals for soldiers returning with brain-related injuries.

Bossi said the company received funding from the state’s Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Life Sciences Greenhouse programs, which supplemented their initial investments.

“A medical-device company requires a lot of capital to get started, and it takes a long time to get through the [federal Food and Drug Administration],” Bossi said.

Corbett proposes to provide competitive matching funds to businesses like those in the Ben Franklin and Life Sciences initiatives that receive federal Small Business Innovation Research funding or early-stage venture capital. He also would create an “Angel investment tax credit” for investors who provide funds to start-ups.

Another program would coordinate local lenders with economic development organizations to start regional revolving loan funds. These funds would invest in new businesses, with loan repayments making the funds self-sustaining, according to his policy memo.

His previous policy paper focused on ideas for government reform, particularly on ways to reduce state spending. Corbett said his proposals to increase funding assistance can be balanced with reducing overall government spending.

Corbett said: “In [the Department of Community and Economic Development], we give out a lot of money right now. We’re just going to move some of that — we’re going to cut some of it — but we’re going to move some of it to what I think is a smarter way.”

He added that increasing the role of regional economic development groups in attracting businesses can make that process more efficient.

Currently, he said, DCED has a brochure with a lengthy list of programs, and does little to guide companies toward the most compatible offerings. “The lines listing the number of programs are so fine my reading glasses really weren’t good enough — I almost needed a magnifying glass to see it,” Corbett said.

“How about if the regional people who know what’s available say, ‘Come here, we have this building available,’” he said. “We’ve got to change in the mindset that we go in with.”

But Rohrer’s senior strategist, Jeff Coleman, said those development ideas are the same that were used under previous Democratic and Republican governors with “negligible” results.

Such fiscal incentives “benefit a handful of businesses in targeted industries,” and “end up being an excuse for more spending in difficult times,” he said.

“It’s not that we haven’t sweetened the economic development pot,” Coleman said. “We need changes to the state’s tax climate, legal climate, labor climate. The next governor needs to be able to talk there.”