Today is the day the E Board is scheduled to meet and discuss the Douglas administration’s “emergency” demand that business tax incentives through the VT Economic Progress Council (VEPC) and the VT Economic Growth Incentive program (VEGI) be raised 150% – that’s 15 million dollars – to 25 million total. This is the same Governor of course who wants to slash critical programs because he says we can’t afford them. Kudos once again to Doug Hoffer who brought this to our attention: “The E Board consists of five people: the governor and the four chairpersons of the money committees (Heath, Obuchowski, Bartlett, and Cummings).  The proposal is bad on substance AND process.”

It’s all rather mysterious. It’s being rushed through, with the Governor and his people jumping up and down saying the taxpayer dollars must be shoveled out toot sweet with no real accountability in play. There is no real transparency at all. Word is that it involves companies that just applied for the funds last Friday, and that there is a start up company involved that is supposedly promising 500 jobs. That’s all anyone seems to know, and even that seems to be unconfirmable.

So the legislature legislative branch is being bullied into a multimillion dollar big business blind trust fund in a time of economic downturn with virtually no accountability or transparency, and no real idea where the money is going. Sounds rather TARP-ish, doesn’t it? Add to that the scuttlebutt that the Governor may ultimately want the VEPC/VEGI fund limit to be uncapped entirely. Sounds a little like Fannie/Freddie, eh?

The whole system has already been, let’s say “questionably skewed,” beyond simply the transparency and accountability issue. For example, when VEGI gives out grants, it bases them on the broad metric of “industry background growth” rather than  basing it on the actual applicant business. Most other states base their grant on what the company itself is doing, rather than the industry as a whole. Using broad industry driven metrics instead of company-specific ones can end up with a business grant being much larger than it otherwise would’ve been.

Part of the probblem with the lack of transparency is that it can allow people to get funny ideas. You know, a lame duck governor, on his way out. A Governor whos faced questions about showing favoritism to campaign contributors, and who isn’t too concerned about the appearence of inmappropriate ties to favored busunisses (see diary immediately below). Why, some might assume there is a last minute attempt to bully millions of taxpayer dollars from the legislative branch out to some buddies in the business world. After all, he’s going to be looking for work this time next year.

But only a cynical person would think that.