BIA Advocacy Update

City of Fargo makes updates to Economic Incentives

On Aug. 18, the City Commission approved changes to the city's economic incentives process. The first is implementing a three year deadline for beginning a project after being granted a Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) property tax exemption. The second is an update to core neighborhood incentives. Currently, the city can grant a tax exemption for apartment redevelopment at 100% for the first 5 years and then 50% for years 6-10. Under the new change, it will be 100% for 7 years. 

News from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry for August

Updates from August found in the newsletter include:

• Report on PTSD claims in Minnesota's workers' compensation system
• Webinar: Workplace Rights Week
• New edition of Safety Lines newsletter
• Minnesota Dual-Training Pipeline 101 webinar
• New Addition of Apprenticeship Works newsletter
• Summary of MNOSHA fatality, serious-injury investigations

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank webinar on regional economic conditions: General business

The regional outreach team for the Ninth District recently surveyed various businesses across the district to gauge economic activity. They hosted a webinar Aug. 12 to go over those findings. 

Resources: 

• Webinar
• Slides

Key takeaways: 

• Continued slow revenue and profit trends
• The advantage of size reappeared; larger firms seeing better (or less bad) trends than smaller firms
• Clear softening in labor demand; fewer hiring, and full-time jobs continued to decline 
• Wage pressure easing 
• Businesses reported higher wholesale & retail inflation
• Biggest challenge? Government policies, particularly around tariffs, saw big increase
• Outlook: Overall sentiment turned from net-positive in January to net-negative in July; a lot of uncertainty

Recap of August's Building Industry Connect with Moorhead City Council

BIA-RRV was joined by Council Members Lisa Borgen and Sebastian McDougall last week for Building Industry Connect. They shared insights on their experience being newer to the council, the camaraderie they have with other council members, the importance of having diverse housing options, redevelopment happening in their downtown and more. 

We're grateful that they met with us and look forward to future conversations! 

Above: BIC attendees and council members Borgen and McDougall (front, third and fourth from left). 

Industry Findings from GFMEDC Workforce Summit

In June, the Greater Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corporation (GFMEDC) hosted a workforce summit centered around three key sectors: manufacturing and trades, bioscience and healthcare, and agtech and autonomous systems. Businesses and leaders in each sector met and discussed various challenges and opportunities. Key findings from what was discussed at each breakout session were recently shared. 

Click here to access various information about each sector. You can find the themes and action items for the Manufacturing and Trades sector here.

According to the findings "the most critical take-away was that 'Urgency is Real' given the impacts of the talent shortages are expected to be most pronounced from 2030- 2035."