Montgomery County to give $1M to create 524 jobs with nine projects

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Michael E. Boyd

A group of economic development officials around Montgomery County recommended giving just over $1 million in county funds for nine projects that could create up to 524 jobs.

Tristan Navera

Staff Reporter- Dayton Business Journal

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A group of economic development officials around Montgomery County recommended giving just over $1 million in county funds for nine projects that could create up to 524 jobs.

The funds will come through the county's Economic Development/Government Equity, or ED/GE program — a board of economic development officials from around the county who convene twice a year to disperse county funds to business projects in the region.

In all, the county received requests for $2.3 million in funding for 14 different projects. It ultimately voted to recommend its $1.1 million to nine of them.

Montgomery County Commission will ultimately vote to approve the recommendations. The funds will be dispersed to the respective jurisdictions for them to assist the companies with the business projects.

"The challenge was that we have a lot of good projects in this round, and so how do we support as many of them as possible," said Joe Tuss, Montgomery County administrator.

Five of the projects didn't receive funding — a proposed business development center the City of Riverside looked to create, and expansions from Newby Orthodontics, PVS Plastics, and American Testing Services and an unnamed company under the code name "Project Chill."

ED/GE typically does not fund health care-related projects or expansions of business that is geographically linked to Dayton, ED/GE committee members have said. American Testing has already pulled the trigger on its expansion and PVS Plastics is on unclear footing with regards to the building where it is located, whose owner is in bankruptcy, Tuss said.

"The region has lost 70,000 jobs in 15 years," said Shelley Dickstein, assistant city manager for Dayton, "We need to look at ways to use this money to grow new jobs, and look at the cost per job in doing that."