The Utah Rural Fast Track program, designed to boost the number of high-paying jobs at existing small companies in rural counties, saw 31 grants approved during the past fiscal year, including 13 during the year’s fourth quarter.
Aided by some news media coverage, a rural job-creation program has been blossoming in recent months.
The Utah Rural Fast Track program, designed to boost the number of high-paying jobs at existing small companies in rural counties, saw 31 grants approved during the past fiscal year, including 13 during the year’s fourth quarter.
“It’s been a good year, and it’s going to get better,” Linda Gillmor, associate managing director for urban and rural business services and director of the Office of Rural Development in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) told the GOED board during a fiscal-year review.
The GOED board endorses the grants after they have been approved by the Governor’s Rural Partnership Board. Recipients must have been in business at least two years, have at least two full-time employees and meet certain wage criteria. Individual grants are limited to $50,000. Program officials have stressed that even a few new jobs in a rural county are equivalent to dozens of new jobs, if not more, in an urban setting.
The busiest recent months for grants considered by the GOED board were May, when eight grants were approved, tied to 84 jobs and $1.9 million in capital investment, and a record number of 10 in July.
Gillmor said the office has been working to increase awareness of the program, including sending out news releases to news media in each county where recipient companies are located. “That does make a difference,” Gillmor said. “[People in] those counties read their paper and then they say, ‘Well, I could grow. I could do that.’ So it makes a difference.”
A year ago, the office received, on average, two grant applications per month. “We’re swamped with applications,” Gillmor said, “which is a wonderful thing to have.”
The 31 grants during the 2015-16 fiscal year were across 12 counties and totaled $1.3 million in funding, tied to projects with a total capital investment of $4.5 million and the creation of 122 jobs. The highest number, six, was in Sanpete County. Cache and Morgan counties each had five and Box Elder had four.
The 31 grants were spread through 11 industries, including 16 for manufacturing operations and four for auto repair.
In the fiscal year fourth quarter, 13 grants totaling $608,000 were approved. The projects’ total capital investment is $3.37 million and 91 jobs are expected to be created. The fourth-quarter mix included seven counties: Grand, Morgan, Cache, Carbon, Emery, Sanpete and Millard. Most were for manufacturing.
“We see diverse industry [representation], but we still like to see manufacturing be about half of it,” Gillmor said. “Occasionally, people think that Rural Fast Track is only for manufacturing. It’s not, but we still like to see those numbers high.”
Other industries included auto repair, extermination, meat processing, waste management, construction and agriculture/dairy production. “And rural needs diverse industry. … It’s nice to see that mix,” she said.
Gillmor noted that during the past three years, all of Utah’s rural counties have had at least one project receive a grant.
Details about the Rural Fast Track grants are at http://business.utah.gov/programs/incentives/rural-fast-track/.