Earmarks in Washington and funding lost to N.M.
BYLINE: Everybody's Business AUTUMN GRAY Of the Journal
Federal earmark funds directed toward some highprofile New Mexico economic development programs have, shall we say, been Van Goghed.
The congressional scissors are out in an effort to trim the national deficit, and a few local business boosters have already fallen to the floor. Whether their work will be missed or whether their time had passed anyway, depends on who you ask. In either case, the situation highlights once again our vulnerability as a D.C., dependent.
Among the victims:
Technology Ventures Corp. stands to lose as much as $3 million in federal monies, or half its annual budget, unless president and CEO Sherman McCorkle can find an alternate source. (He either will, or will die trying.) The nonprofit was founded in 1993 by Sandia National Laboratories manager Lockheed Martin Corp. and began receiving federal funds in 2002 through the annual energy and water appropriations bill. TVC helps technology developed at the lab find a home in the consumer world.
"If we lost TVC, it would be a real blow," said Mark Lautman, director of economic development for the 12,900-acre Mesa del Sol project south of the airport. "That's been the primary vehicle for putting a venture capitalist or funding platform under the entrepreneurial efforts going on in the community."
TechConex vanished in 2005 after three years building business in the state's rural cities. The nonprofit customized employee training programs for existing companies and ones considering locating in the state. It had sought renewal of a onetime $4.5 million grant from the Department of Labor but was denied. The money was an earmark Sen. Pete Domenici managed to get into the federal budget, said Patrick Vanderpool, who was the group's executive director.
Lautman believes TechConex was ahead of its time as one of the first organizations to begin compiling labor market data, identifying gaps in the employee pool and conducting industry-specific training. "It's a shame someone didn't pick up what they were doing," he said.
Had the program continued, Vanderpool says, it would have attracted more companies to outlying areas. "What happens when we lose these types of programs is it makes us less competitive, and those cities that do develop these types of programs, they have a competitive edge."
In August, funding dried up for 6-year-old NextGeneration Economy Inc. and it closed at the end of 2006. The organization, which was widely criticized as being amorphous at best, its work producing little anyone could wrap his hands around, has been praised by others for organizing and uniting individuals in a variety of scientific and artistic fields. NextGen rallied idea people and helped them move outside their computer rooms and garages to the marketplace.
"It was hard to raise money for the mission because the mission had been satisfied," said former NextGen board member David Buchholtz. "Some of the things we were trying to do - identifying sectors of business growth - had accomplished their goal, and so the loss of federal funding may have been an example that that job was done."
Though not funded with earmarks, NextGen, too, received primarily DOE money.
The disappearance, or potential demise, of programs like these have got some in the business community wondering just how much bloodletting the state's business sector will tolerate and still maintain the momentum gained since the turn of the century. Unquestionably, the work of specialized nonprofit economic development engines has had a hand, if not an entire torso, in the progress - from contributing to the creation of new businesses to attracting venture capital money and helping empower and organize the formerly disenfranchised entrepreneurial and creative classes.
"I think the economy in New Mexico is growing, and we're in a much different place than we were six years ago, even four years ago. But I don't think New Mexico is mature enough to where those resources can just disappear," said Del Esparza, of Esparza Advertising, which did some marketing work for TVC and NextGen.
"It's disconcerting what's happening with the collapse of the earmarked services in Congress," Lautman said. "We are looking at discretionary programs in New Mexico being at risk. We're going to have to show a businesslike or business-style return on an investment if we're going to keep a program going."
Alternatively, President Bush's determination to cut in half the number of earmarked projects may just be the pull of the rug New Mexico needs. With our umbilical cord to the federal budget shriveling as if from too much time in the sun, the cry is out for stronger private-sector support to emerge.
If you have a business news tip, idea or insider information, contact Autumn Gray, assistant business editor, at 823-3962 or agray@abqjournal.com.