In the latest round of state budget proposals, TBED initiatives receive mixed reviews. Some governors are boosting funding while others in cash-strapped states are proposing cuts.

A month after a federal court ruled that high-speed Internet service can be defined as a utility, four states have announced commitments to expand high quality, reliable broadband services to rural areas and other underrepresented groups. Two Midwest states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, will provide funding to help support projects that improve access to broadband and spur economic prosperity.

Students at several California community colleges as well as California State University (CSU) campuses have access to a new incentive to graduate in four years through new state “promise” programs.  Gov. Jerry Brown Jr. signed SB 412 and AB 1741 creating “promise” programs that act in conjunction with a new 2025 Graduation Initiative, aiming to boost the number of students graduating from those institutions in four years to 40 percent. Success in the programs is intended to help address future workforce needs of California and improve achievement gaps.

Venture development organizations are reaching into new territory for funding partners and finding success in innovative models. Two new funds, the San Diego Tech & Life Science Investor Syndicate and Rev1 Fund I in Columbus, OH, have recently opened with less traditional funding sources, testing the waters of crowdfunding and heavy corporate backing, respectively. The San Diego fund, launched by CONNECT, allows anyone wanting to invest $1,000 the opportunity to participate alongside more experienced lead investors.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced a number of grants last week to aid regional innovation and entrepreneurship efforts through infrastructure improvements, the creation of new spaces, and business improvements in regions across the country. The grants fund projects in AR, AZ, CA, ME, MI, and OH.

The nation’s largest system of higher education with over 2 million students is trying to connect community colleges to their regional economies through a three-year, $17-million-dollar investment to establish a statewide network of maker-focused colleges. The California Community College (CCC) Maker Initiative may provide a model for community colleges to infuse making, innovation, and entrepreneurship into students’ college experiences while helping them prepare for STEM/STEAM careers with the necessary skills for 21st Century jobs.

After training nearly 80 PhD scientists and engineers in the craft of policy making, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) has awarded planning grants to nine other states to evaluate the potential to create a policy fellowship for scientists and engineers in their state capital. The new one-year grant, which is administered by CCST and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Simons Foundation, will support teams in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington as they work on feasibility studies and other strategic steps toward creating science fellowships in their state policy arenas.

California’s efforts to grow the role of its community colleges (CCs) was reinforced with the governor’s recent budget request to establish a fully online public community college, while a report reviewing the state’s established pilot program to offer baccalaureate degrees at some CCs presented some serious questions.

California online community college proposed

Governors continue to be cautious in their budget proposals, with many TBED programs seeing level funding or modest increases and cuts in some states while few new programs are being introduced. Kentucky is transferring one program to economic development, while at the same time reducing its funding. Missouri is proposing short-term benefits that may impact longer-term growth, while New York is looking to fund its life sciences initiative announced last year and Vermont is proposing an increase for its growth and innovation pilot project.

Kentucky

SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs feature continues as governors across the country roll out their state of the state addresses. We review each speech for comments relevant to the innovation economy, and bring you their words directly from their addresses. In this fourth installment, we present excerpts from governors in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

For hundreds of years, libraries have helped drive American innovation by serving as a trusted resource and providing information to a wide range of individuals. As libraries continue to implement their own initiatives in this space, policymakers across the country have recently turned to them as a way to level the playing field around workforce development and entrepreneurial support.

With more than 30 percent of rural America still lacking access to what the FCC considers adequate broadband, governors from across the country are working toward diverse strategies to build rural broadband capacity. By providing rural communities with access to full-speed, stable broadband, these governors hope that they can revitalize rural communities by helping small business formation and expansion as well as improve educational achievement/workforce training for rural citizens.

A bipartisan group of 17 governors signed the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future – a joint commitment to support the deployment of renewable, cleaner and more efficient energy technologies and other solutions to make the U.S. economy more productive and resilient as well as spur job creation in member states.

State economic growth relies on the availability of a workforce capable of filling open positions. But increasingly around the country, one of the top concerns of employers is finding the right talent to fill these roles. Beyond corporate strategies in hiring, states are increasingly developing new initiatives to keep their pipeline of talent flowing.

SSTI Excellence in TBED award winners produce real results that are changing the landscape of their communities, expanding infrastructure to grow high-tech sectors and improving the competitiveness of their regions. Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed in the broader innovation community. Over the past couple of months, award winners have grabbed headlines – and funding – for their impressive work. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stopped by Clemson University’s Center for Automotive Research to tout its success in workforce development. In St. Louis, Monsanto recently awarded $2.5 million to BioSTL to support bioscience startups and, in Arizona, a $1 million grant will help fund ASU accelerator programs.

Help us spread the news about the program! SSTI’s open call for applications for the 2014 Excellence in TBED awards is April 16.

The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, a group created when the St. Louis County Economic Council and the city’s St. Louis Development Corp. merged last year, has released an ambitious economic strategy for the region. Planners are calling for collaboration between the region’s economic development organizations and startup initiatives, such as Accelerate St.

With nearly $10 million in additional funding for the upcoming year, the public-private Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) will receive a boost in support for core programs and new resources to administer early stage business grants. MTC invests in emerging high-tech companies with a focus on bioscience industries.

In a recent comparative study of state S&T policy dynamics in Georgia, Missouri and Texas, authors Jarrett Warshaw and James Hearn examine the nature of state efforts intended to bring together government, universities and industry to support innovation at publically funded universities and spur economic development.

Addressing accessibility, affordability and ensuring workforce preparedness topped legislators’ agendas in many states during the 2014 sessions. States and regions are increasingly competing for talent as the trend toward growing and nurturing innovation ecosystems continues.

Breaking a two-year impasse, legislators in Illinois were able to pass a state budget that reinstitutes an R&D tax credit and implements workforce development programs. In California, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (Go-Biz) will see a 28 percent increase in funding, while other innovation initiative are receiving level funding. In other states whose budgets SSTI analyzed this week for TBED-related funding, we found that Innovate Mississippi was able to maintain state funding and new funding was appropriated for workforce development at the state’s community and junior colleges; a variety of programs were cut in North Carolina; and, Ohio will not get funding for a state office focused on commercializing research across key industries that the governor had proposed. More findings from California, Illinois, Mississippi, North Carolina and Ohio are detailed below.

With a July 1 start to the fiscal year in most states, several states that were at an impasse over their budget faced at least partial shutdowns. Last minute negotiations restarted services in both Maine and New Jersey, while Illinois, which has been operating without a budget since 2015, faces threats of a downgrade in their credit rating if a deal cannot be reached. This week we present our findings of innovation funding from seven states, including $2 million in funding for a new public-private economic development organization in Delaware, an increase in funding in Louisiana for the state’s scholarship program for higher ed, and cuts to higher ed funding in Missouri, which also saw a severe drop in its funding to the Missouri Technology Corporation. Efforts in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington are also detailed below.

Across the U.S. people are working to build a more talented, skilled workforce, but often those efforts happen in isolation, separated from larger economic development efforts without engaging community and business leaders. A recently released playbook from the Aspen Institute and Futureworks, Communities That Work Partnership Playbook, aims to change a siloed approach and explores seven regional efforts to develop the local workforce for different industries and occupations. The playbook highlights key takeaways and is intended to provide guidance to others developing talent pipelines. SSTI also talked with individuals in Milwaukee and Kansas City about their regional efforts to develop the talent pipeline.