“We’re not at all pleased about it but we’re not panicked about it,”
NETWORKS Chief Executive Officer and President Venable said recently at a board
meeting at the Domtar Cabin in Colonial Heights.
With some luck and hard
work, he said, the 2013 Scorecard will improve.
The metrics track projects
with which NETWORKS was directly involved. So although NETWORKS officials were
present at Eastman Chemical Co.’s announcement earlier this month of $1.6
billion in capital spending on construction and 300 new permanent jobs, that and
other projects without direct NETWORKS involved are not included.
Through
June 18, new jobs created with help or involvement from NETWORKS were 40, 20
each from new and existing business and industry. That compares to a goal of
575, 275 existing and 300 new.
Year-to-date in 2012 numbers were 30
each.
Also, capital investment was $1.3 million for existing and none for
new, compared to goals of $26 million for existing and $10 million for new.
Year-to-date for 212 was $1 million in new and $15 million in existing.
All
told, he said 29 projects remain active, and those in the “likely” and
“committed” status represent more than 555 new jobs and more than $168.7 million
in new investment.
NETWORKS also has a more complex Performance Scorecard,
which has weighted goals. Performance so far is 21.7 percent of weight goals and
46.30 percent actual. One of the reasons the weighted results are short of the
actual one is that NETWORKS has sold no business park or industrial park land.
Land sales by acres is weighted 7.5 percent of the scorecard, as is the dollar
amount of those land sales.
Venable and board Chairman Charlie Floyd also
went over the draft 2013-14 operating budget, which is to stay at $700,000 as in
2012-13, although the actual expenses to date for the fiscal year ending June 30
was $621,966.However, the board lacked a quorum, so it could not vote on the
budget. It will meet again in August.