Leaders in Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha and St. Louis have teamed up to leverage their respective resources and help build an economic mega-region in the center of the country. The Heartland Civic Collaborative will focus on four main areas of opportunity: transportation, federal advocacy, life science and entrepreneurship. In the coming months, the collaborative plans to begin work on an entrepreneurial metrics dashboard for the participating metros and a map of life sciences research assets.

This week, governor’s in eight states released their budget proposals. Balanced budgets and fiscal austerity were undoubtedly emphasized by the governors, yet funding for STEM education and workforce development initiatives were increasingly popular.

Governors in Maryland, Minnesota, and Florida proposed substantial funds to higher education in their budgets this week, with an emphasis on affordable education and expanded research capacity.

Over the past few months, SSTI has followed proposals issued by governors in their budget requests, State of the State Addresses, Inaugural Speeches and other events. Now that many governors have signed spending bills, the SSTI Digest will check on the status of these proposals, and examine the state of technology-based economic development funding in the states. This week, we review actions in Kansas, Michigan and Minnesota.

Last month, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed the MNVest bill – an intrastate securities exemption that allows Minnesota-based companies and entrepreneurs to raise money through equity crowdfunding. To qualify for the exemption, businesses must show evidence of several requirements including being organized under state laws and that its principal office is located in Minnesota. Companies can raise capital from both accredited and non-accredited investors from across the state.

Recently announced programs in the St. Louis and Minneapolis-St. Paul regions offer startups and major corporations new chances to connect and work together. Pioneered by Illinois’ Corporate Startup Challenge, these types of programs seek to build bridges between important components of the innovation ecosystem: revolutionary new products and services and established market leaders.

A mixture of success and trepidation accompanied 2016 legislation introduced in  several states to create, extend, or recapitalize angel tax credit programs. While legislation in Arizona’s legislature failed due to a lack of support, angel tax credit bills in Kansas and Tennessee passed easily with broad support from their governors, lawmakers, and the public. In North Dakota, the state’s angel tax credit program faces an unclear future due to concerns about transparency and oversight. To stimulate investments in West Virginia’s startup community, Gov.

The ability of states to deliver the services promised to its residents relies on their fiscal soundness. With most states beginning their fiscal year in July, SSTI has reviewed the current fiscal standing for each state and here presents a snapshot of our findings.

As governors and state legislatures continue their negotiations over state budgets, SSTI has reviewed the latest to be signed. The process has proved difficult in more than a few states, with New Mexico having to overcome several stalemates and still facing shortages while in Oklahoma three-fourths of the state agencies are seeing decreased funding due to the state’s $900 million shortfall.

Investments and policy to support innovation-focused agendas have flourished with the close of the 2014 legislative sessions in several states. Crowdfunding legislation, incentives for attracting talent, higher education affordability, punishing patent trolls, and encouraging greater accountability are some of the areas where lawmakers focused their efforts.

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.

The perils of regional economies being too dependent on single industry clusters, particularly as it affects the financing of state governments, are playing out in the Great Plains. Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming have been or still are experiencing recessions, beginning as early as spring 2015 for two, according to a new analysis by Jason P. Brown for the Tenth Federal Reserve District.

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.

SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs feature returns 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 second installment, we present excerpts from governors in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Washington.

Workforce development programs and apprenticeships continue to win favor in many of the governors’ state budget proposals. In our latest review of TBED initiatives being proposed in state budgets, we found Kansas asking for additional funds for research, worker training and apprenticeships; Massachusetts is looking to double community college scholarship funding and increase several workforce development initiatives; and in Michigan, skilled trades training would receive a boost.

Kansas

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.

A change in policy at the Mayo Clinic has “single-handedly sprouted a startup ecosystem in Rochester, as med-tech startups, accelerators, co-working spaces and a venture capital ecosystem have flourished in the area over the last half decade” according to new research by Maddy Kennedy of the The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

The Minnesota Department of Deployment and Economic Development (DEED) has launched a new loan program for entrepreneurs with high-tech products or services. The loans are similar in size to microfinance options increasingly available to new bricks-and-mortar establishments, but flexible payment options and innovation-focused criteria are intended to make Minnesota Innovation Loans for Entrepreneurs (MILE) uniquely appropriate for tech-based economic development.