SSTI Digest

With less money to spend on risky endeavors, many states are taking more targeted approaches toward economic development, seeking out sectors of the economy they consider most likely to grow and be sustainable beyond current conditions. In Hawaii, for example, lawmakers established an Aerospace Advisory Committee this session seeking long-term growth in aerospace-related industries. Missouri legislators, meanwhile, passed an "emergency jobs bill" expanding tax credits for technology business projects, and North Dakota lawmakers increased funding for agricultural research and infrastructure. The following overview provides highlights of approved budgets and legislation from the 2009 sessions in Hawaii, Missouri and North Dakota.

Hawaii Lawmakers agreed to a scaled-back restructuring plan for the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), separating one division from the department and transferring two attached agencies to other departments.

In a special session on Tuesday, the Vermont Legislature enacted the state's FY10 budget, overriding last week's veto by Governor Jim Douglas. The budget eliminates or reduces funding for many programs related to economic development and TBED, cutbacks which were cited as concerns by Gov. Douglas in his veto announcement.

The $4.5 billion budget includes $4 million in economic development incentives to be administered through the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA), significantly less than the $11 million proposed by the governor. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) will receive only $500,000, which the governor says will effectively shut down the organization by September. VTA has played an integral role in the state's unfinished plan to provide border-to-border cell phone and wireless data access.

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Gov. Charlie Crist signed Florida's $66.5 billion 2009-10 budget into law last week, providing a mixed bag of funding outcomes for the state's existing economic development programs.

The two main components of the Florida Biomedical Research Programs administered by the Florida Department of Health emerge with large funding increases. The James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program will be given $27.2 million from the state biomedical research trust fund in FY09-10, up from $9.9 million in the previous year. Similarly, the Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program will receive $25.0 million, an increase from $9.0 million last year.

The Angel Capital Association's (ACA) latest report on angel group confidence finds little consensus about the state of the industry. While 40 percent believe that their total number of investments and their total investment dollars will decrease in 2009, 30.7 percent believe that their portfolio will increase, 23.1 percent believe it will stay the same.

The results, when compared to findings from a similar survey ACA conducted in November 2008, suggest the angel community is becoming more certain in their outlook on 2009. That might be expected, now that we are five months into the year, but no real trends are appearing other than the number of angels seeing declines is growing at a faster pace than the number expecting growth. In November, only 34.4 percent expected lower deals and yields and only 20.4 percent expected increases.

Compiling SBIR Phase I award and proposal statistics by state for fiscal year 2008, SSTI finds the 10 states with the most awards in FY 2008 were California (688), Massachusetts (476), Virginia (224), New York (195), Colorado (182), Maryland (156), Texas (140), Pennsylvania (129), Ohio (120) and Florida (102). Compared to the top states for FY07, New York moved into the fourth position from sixth place last year and Pennsylvania had slightly more awards than Ohio, moving Pennsylvania up one position from last year and pushing Ohio down to ninth.

J. Mike Books is leaving his post with the Indiana Health Industry Forum to become the first economic development director for the city of Columbia, Missouri. He also will serve as president of the Regional Economic Development Inc. Brooks will assume his new responsibilities on July 15.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the appointment of Judith Canales as Administrator for Rural Business and Cooperative programs in USDA's Rural Development agency.

Donald Cardon, who has been serving as director of the Arizona Department of Housing since March, was named director of the Arizona Department of Commerce.

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SSTI has an effective new learning tool for TBED policymakers and practitioners seeking guidance in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies. Through exclusive interviews with Excellence in TBED Award recipients, find out first-hand how these award winning initiatives successfully responded to a critical need by applying innovative approaches to generate substantial economic gains for their region.

A full week after the Administration's budget request was released, NSF made available details on the foundation's $7.05 billion request. With the new information, SSTI is presenting below its summary regarding the NSF budget proposal's impact on programs of importance to state and regional TBED efforts. This profile, along with similar budget summaries of 17 other agencies, is available in an updated version of SSTI's Special Federal Budget Issue. The PDF document may be found at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2009/fy10budget.pdf.

Lawmakers across several western states have reached budget agreements for the upcoming fiscal year or biennium allocating decreased or level funding for tech-based economic development efforts. Lawmakers also passed new legislation supporting job-creation efforts and investments in alternative energy. While funding for many of these programs appear secure in FY10, additional spending cuts are anticipated in the coming months if state revenues continue to decline.

A new report published by BIO, Battelle and the Biotechnology Institute finds that student achievement in biosciences varies widely between and within states. It also finds that many states lag behind in programmatic efforts to improve bioscience education, even as the life science industry grows in stature as a common priority for TBED initiatives.

The report, which was released to coincide with the start of this year's BIO convention, argues that state education systems across the country must improve to make the U.S. competitive in biotechnology. On average, only 28 percent of students taking the ACT obtained a score indicating readiness for college-level biology. Only 52 percent of 12th graders were at or about a basic level of achievement in the sciences. Science achievement among twelfth graders actually declined between 1995 and 2005 nationwide, though this was not true for all states.

Last week the NIH issued a request for comments regarding potential changes to existing federal regulations covering conflicts of interest in the design, conduct, or reporting of NIH-affiliated research. Through an Advanced Notice of Public Rule Making (ANPRM), the regulations include topics such as:

Expanding the scope of regulation and disclosure interests; Refining the definition of a "significant financial interest"; Determining how institutions can identify and manage conflicts; Assuring institutional compliance; Providing additional information to the Public Health Service (PHS); and, Broadening regulations to address institutional conflicts of interest.

The comment period is open until July 7, 2009 and opinions may be submitted online, by fax, or by mail.