State grant for P&G Co. questioned

COLUMBUS

Sen. Ray Miller asked the question that should be on the minds of all Ohioans who have been tightening their belts or looking for work or going without needed doctor visits.

It came during last week’s Controlling Board meeting, a regular session where a lawmaker panel signs off on contracts and payments of public funds planned by state agencies.

Most of the day’s 64-item agenda received the usual rubber stamp with no discussion, but lawmakers did ask for clarification on a few things.

Miller, a Democrat from Columbus in his last term in the Senate, pulled item No. 32, a $250,000 grant used to entice the Procter & Gamble Co. to expand its established presence in Cincinnati.

Yes, that Procter & Gamble, the multi-billion-dollar company, where top-level executives take home millions of dollars in pay annually.

And good for them, in the rah-rah capitalistic sense that has made us the global power we are today.

There’s no crime against building a successful company and putting products onto the market that consumers will buy. There’s no crime to stuffing your pockets with cash in the process, either.

Procter & Gamble has a big impact on the state’s economy. It employs a lot of people in southwestern Ohio, directly at its operations and indirectly through suppliers and others that benefit from its presence.

The company also is poised to make a $20 million investment in Cincinnati, creating 336 full-time jobs and retaining another 562 that are at risk.

Business growth

Other states want that kind of business growth — Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas were all vying for the project, according to documents. Which is part of the reason the Ohio Department of Development stepped up and signed off on a $250,000 rapid outreach grant.

“We felt that this was a modest investment considering the overall opportunity to invest in a [project] bringing over 300 new jobs ...,” said Ed Jerse, director of government relations for the Ohio Department of Development.

That’s what the Department of Development is supposed to do, right?

But there’s a rub for Miller and, I think, other Ohioans who are struggling to make ends meet.

Realistically, the top five executives at the company could cover that amount of money and not see any meaningful decrease in their take-home pay or standard of living.

For them, $250,000 is a drop in the bucket.

“I don’t think P&G is going to go anywhere,” Miller said during last week’s Controlling Board meeting. “I think that they’re going to stay in Ohio. ... And we’re very glad that they’re here. But, you know, [it’s a] rich get richer kind of a situation here. Why are we giving $250,000 to Procter & Gamble?”

Miller said he’s talked to small, minority-owned businesses about the difficulties they have securing state grants — funding that often is the different between whether they succeed or fail.

“If Procter & Gamble does not get this $250,000, which is 1 percent of this overall project, they’ll be OK,” Miller said. “I think they’ll be OK.”

The Controlling Board gave its approval for the grant last week, overriding Miller’s objections.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.