The City of Hilliard Sustainability Plan

Hilliard Sustainability Plansignificant benefits to the city of Hilliard, competing to attract these largercompanies can also be very costly. Providing incentives to small businessesallows them the chance to expand and increase their salaries and thenumber of people they employ. 69Recommendation: The City of Hilliard will provide reduced-interest loansto small businesses or companies planning to start up that would be ineligiblefor the economic incentives that the city currently offers.Short Term (1-3 years)» The Department of Economic Development will determine thenecessary criteria for businesses to qualify for these loans. TheDepartment of Economic Development will base their small loanmodel on the Ohio State Treasury’s Grow Now program. This willwork by the City of Hilliard making a deposit at participating banksby using money generated from fees and services. The city willagree to take a reduced interest rate on the deposit. In return thebank will agree to provide a set amount of reduced interest loans tosmall businesses. A list of participating banks can be found on theOhio State Treasury website. Party responsible: The Department ofEconomic Development. 70 Cost: None. The City still has access tothe money, they are just receiving less interest on it.» The Economic Development Director will hire a web consultant tobuild a webpage that will help to promote awareness of reducedloan opportunities that are available for small businesses. Thiswebpage will provide information such as what banks will providethese loans and the necessary criteria to qualify for a loan. The grownow web page can be used as a reference for what informationthe city of Hilliard should include in their webpage Partyresponsible: The Department of Economic Development.Cost: Building a webpage will cost about $90 an hour. 71 Themoney for this will come from the Economic DevelopmentDepartment’s budget.Medium Term (3-5 years)» The Department of Economic Development will establish aset of criteria to determine if businesses are complying withthe agreements of their loans. This oversight will providethe department assurance that the conditions of the loanare being met and that the organization or business hascontributed to the jobs and growth on which the loan wascontingent. Party responsible: The Department of EconomicDevelopment. Cost: None.» The Economic Development Director will assess how smallbusinesses have grown and expanded since the adoptionof reduced income loans. This will be measured by howestablished companies have increased their employeesand median wage since receiving these loans. By this timeframe the city will seek to have expanded or created threeexisting business as a result of these loans Before anybusiness is eligible to receive a loan they will be requiredto document relevant information, such as the number ofcurrent employees working for the company and medianwages. This information will allow a baseline for futurecomparisons. The number of new businesses that have beenestablished as a result of these loans will also be used todetermine the program’s success. Based upon these findingsand recommendations the Economic Development DirectorECON. EXECUTIVE DEV.SOCIAL SUMMARY EQ.105