Better planning and coordination are needed among Texas econommic development programs / Office of the State Auditor.
Abstract
The new statewide plan needs input that is representative of all businesses and industry groups
in the State. To get some indication of business opinions about economic development programs,
the State Auditor's Office surveyed 194 of the State's business taxpayers. Although the response
rate (106 of 194, or 55 percent) was not adequate to allow projection of the results with
confidence to the entire population, the results provided useful information about the opinions
of Texas business taxpayers. The respondents indicated that few businesses (25 percent) were
aware of economic development programs, and even fewer (13 percent) felt they had benefitted
from them. Similar information-from-business-taxpayers should be used in -updating the State's
economic development plan to help determine which services are most important and where they
are most needed.
The absence of statewide planning also contributed to the other two issues discussed in this
report, which deal with coordination and performance monitoring.