Only district in state: Port flunks economic development review

The Port of Whitman County flunked a state report card on the county’s economic development efforts in the 2007-2009 biennium. Port officials say it means little in light of the upheaval in the state agency’s economic development office.

Joe Poire, port executive director, told port commissioners at their regular meeting last Thursday that the port failed to meet benchmarks set by the port and the state Department of Commerce to measure the county’s economic development efforts in 2009.

The port administers economic development efforts through a contract with the county. The county extended that contract for another two years in June.

The failure to meet the benchmarks left Whitman County as the only county in the state which failed to meet at least half of its economic development goals.

But does it mean anything?

“We only reported our actual activity, which left us short in some areas,” said Poire. “There’s a lot of things we did as the port that could have qualified, but we decided not to include them.”

“So what you’re saying is we’re the only county in the state that didn’t fudge our numbers,” said Port Commissioner John Love.

Among other goals, the benchmarks include the number of jobs created, the number of businesses brought to the area, facilitate small business development and holding job training seminars.

“We could have sent someone to that affordable housing forum in Pullman that (former economic development officer Tammy Lewis) used to go to and just marked it off,” said Poire. “But what would we have legitimately gained from that?”

Poire said the problem was brought on by staff changes in the economic development department.

“We’ve had a lot of upheaval in our personnel and in the economy in the last two years,” he said.

Lewis started the biennium as the officer, but left to become director of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce. Dick Watters was hired to replace Lewis, but there was a large time gap in between the two.

A letter sent the port by April Perry, targeted programs manager for the Commerce Department, informed the port it must now develop a plan for the next year to address the performance gaps.

If the port does not meet its revised goals, the agency will lose state economic development funding for one year.

The report card and threat to funding comes at a time when the state has already slashed economic development funding.

The state’s $9 billion revenue loss forced the commerce department to cut programs in its 2009-2011 budget.

For the port, that means a reduction in funding from $57,029 per year to $51,839 per year.