If you want to relocate your business to Fulton County — be it a Fortune 500 company or a thriving start-up — it’s hard to know who to talk to and where to begin, a recent study concluded.
That could change with the creation of Select Fulton, a new venture that would provide a single point of contact.
Select Fulton would be formed by restructuring the county’s office of economic development and its development authority.
Fulton commissioners are slated to vote Wednesday on the measure.
County manager Dick Anderson said Select Fulton would operate much like Invest Atlanta, which functions as the city’s economic development arm.
If approved, the new office would mean a more focused economic development effort for the county.
The Carl Vinson Institute of Government helped to develop the proposal. The institute’s study compared Fulton to places like Gwinnett County and Miami-Dade County in Florida. In economic development, the study said, state and regional contacts want a main point of contact. Right now, there’s no one place where Fulton’s incentive programs are described and listed.
“Our findings suggest that Fulton County should consider a greater centralization and coordination of effort and greater clarity,” the report said.
If successful, it will allow coordination with the economic development arms of Fulton’s cities, the chambers of commerce, community improvement districts and other groups to work together “in a spirit of cooperation and collaboration for the betterment of the lives and economic opportunities of the people residing and working” in the county, according to the proposal.
The study said Fulton should continue trying to draw jobs to unincorporated South Fulton, even as it worked to coordinate more broadly county-wide with cities and other groups. Now, the county has three full-time employees in its economic development division and two part-time employees working in economic development at the department of planning and community development.
The two entities do not cooperate or coordinate, the study said.
The Select Fulton plan plays in to Fulton’s new strategic plan. It’s an early step in Anderson’s goal to streamline government to show accountability for results.
The Wednesday meeting where commissioners will vote on the proposal also will be the first where commissioners receive a performance report on economic development, and how they are progressing against goals to improve the business climate, increase workforce skills and improve employment and the number and size of businesses.
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