NASHVILLE (AP) - The state began posting some information about Tennessee's economic incentives to businesses on a single website Friday.
The Department of Economic and Community Development is calling the site "open ECD."
Commissioner Bill Hagerty told The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/OJ8jNY) the goal is "proactive disclosure" of public records.
The data about incentives and subsidies for creating new jobs was already publicly available. The innovation is putting the information from FastTrack job training assistance and infrastructure grants, Community Develop Block Grants, film and music incentives and the TNInvestco venture capital program in one site.
"What we're doing here is pursuing a policy of proactive disclosure when it comes to public records," Commissioner Bill Hagerty told The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/OJ8jNY).
Tennessee consulted with Good Jobs First, an advocacy group that favors more transparency and effect iveness from economic development subsidies. A 2010 rating by the group gave the state zero points for online disclosure of the incentives.
"We applaud Tennessee for doing this," Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy said. "It's about time. They're in catch-up mode, but better late than never.
Among the information on the site are quarterly FastTrack projects, last year's CDBG awards, the 2011 annual report of TNInvestco and letters from the 10 TNInvestco funds that confirm the amounts invested in individual companies.
The material is posted in PDF format, so it isn't searchable or easily sorted. That's a shortcoming, LeRoy said. He encouraged the state to add searchable databases, business addresses to show exactly where a company with multiple locations is adding jobs and the outcomes of incentives and subsidies.
"It's about time Tennessee stepped out of the shadows," LeRoy said. "People want sunshine."