South Dakota

Do incentives lead directly to a company's expansion? It's never an easy question. Reporting on recent local projects and a controversial tax incentive program in Lead, the Black Hills Pioneer looked to Joy McCracken, Executive Director of Neighborhood Housing. McCracken was

unable to say how many of those projects were initialized solely because of the tax incentive. She did say that there are currently 13 projects in progress with the majority of them doing more than $15,000 of work. She said that while they were all made aware of the tax incentive they haven't been able to take advantage of it because the work is not yet completed. She asked the commission to extend the incentive.Commissioner Rose Burns felt the incentive was not working effectively saying, "I think it's a flawed system." Burns and Commissioner Dru Thomas voted against renewing the incentive for another year.