Operations

The Operations Team within the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) oversees finance, compliance, policy, contract management, human resource, technology services, and overall facility management. We are delivery-focused, ensuring organizational success through efficiency measures and careful consideration of all resources. The Operations Team strives to deliver innovative and thoughtful service through continuous quality improvement. We recognize our stewardship of the organization’s financial, physical and human resources and value the collaborative communication and contribution of effective business procedures and controls.

Achievements Process Improvement: During the 2016 General Session, HB 31 required GOED to begin certification of business entities’ eligibility for an Enterprise Zone tax credit. Initiating a new program acquired from the Tax Commission provided an opportunity for GOED to assess process, information acquisition, and make improvements in the flow of the assessment and reviewing and issuing of tax credits. The majority of assessments completed in 2016 included a manual review, moving, signing and mailing physical documents while tracking status and outcomes in several spreadsheets. Knowing the volume of applications would increase over time, the Operations Team simplified the compliance process by determining what information needed to be collected for accurate and timely assessments. The process then focused on how Salesforce could add automation and assist with document creation. The improved compliance process using the SUCCESS framework coupled with automation has reduced touch-time by more than 45 minutes for each of the 650 estimated Enterprise Zone tax credits GOED will issue this calendar year.

Challenges A year ago, GOED spoke to the challenges of data sharing across agencies. Those barriers still exist one year later. One of the biggest obstacles the agency faces is reconciling tax credits authorized with tax credits taken. The Tax Commission shares documentation with GOED through the TAP system. The advantage to TAP is immediate, secure access to most tax documents. However, the system also has disadvantages: 1. Access to a company’s tax forms is granted providing a completed Authorization to Disclose (ATD).

Complete and accurate forms can be difficult to obtain. Additionally, information can only be requested for companies for which GOED has submitted an ATD. Therefore, there is no way to detect if a company is fraudulently claiming a tax incentive. GOED would not have access to those tax records.

2. The Tax Commission tracks companies that have redeemed all tax credit certificates. To this point, the

Tax Commission has been unwilling to share the information with GOED. To conduct the same level of analysis would be a duplication of effort as well as a potential waste of resources as GOED does not have the same level of access and would never be able to reconcile the amount redeemed.

3. The above two issues combine to create a perfect storm: GOED is ultimately accountable to stakeholders based on Tax Commission reports.

Due to the level of difficulty and the often impossible task of obtaining the data behind the reports, the office cannot confirm the accuracy, nor adequately prepare for discussions with stakeholders in regards to the reports.

Contact

Jill Flygare Managing Director 801-538-8823 jflygare@utah.gov