No WhiteWash!

King College, a denominational college located in Bristol, Tennessee, has been in discussions with Kingsport, Bristol, and Sullivan County officials to build a medical school in Kingsport and Bristol.

The cost for the medical school would be about $150 million.  King is looking for $50 million to come from the cities of Kingsport ($40 million) and Bristol ($10 million), $50 million from the State of Tennessee, and the remaining $50 million from private donations.

At the July 7, 2009, Kingsport, Tennessee Board of Mayor and Alderman, a resolution was passed on first reading to endorse the King College Medical School Initiative, and pledged its commitment to work with Bristol, Sullivan County, and King College to advance the project.

While it does sound like a good project for the area, there will be a major impact on the taxpayers if this is funded via a property tax increase.

Mayor Dennis Phillips has stated that if Kingsport were to fund $40 million for the project, property taxes would have to be raised 25 cents.

Below are tax rates that have been extracted from the Tennessee Property Tax Rates that show the top 20 cities that have the highest tax rates in Tennessee from 406 different tax rates for the different cities and counties.

I have added 25 cents to the tax rates for the two Kingsport line items (Kingsport-Sullivan and Kingsport-Hawkins) in the table below.  Kingsport, with the 25 cents added, would have a rank of 10 and 12 as having the most expensive tax rates in the state.  Bristol has a rank of 14 and I have no knowledge if they would increase property taxes.

Top 20 Cities with the most expensive property tax rates

* The current city and county combined tax rate for Kingsport-Sullivan County is $4.86 and Kingsport-Hawkins County is $4.86.  Twenty-five cents has been added to each of the Kingsport tax rates in the above table.

The household median income for Kingsport is $34,391 and the Kingsport majority of Kingsport property owners would pay over 5.5 percent of household income ($150k home) for property taxes if  the 25 cents is added to the Kingsport tax rate.  The Kingsport rank is 6 and 7 and Bristol comes in at a rank of 8 in the table below for the largest percent of household income needed to pay property taxes.

A taxpayer funded medical school would reduce the already low Kingsport household income and would reduce the standard of living for the majority of Kingsport citizens so the city could reap the benefits of increased revenue to spend on other pet projects.

Top 20 Cities that take the highest percentage of income for property taxes

* The current city and county combined tax rate for Kingsport-Sullivan County is $4.86 and Kingsport-Hawkins County is $4.86.  Twenty-five cents has been added to each of the Kingsport tax rates in the above table.

The above cities that have a college appear not to have increased the standard of living and have a low household median income.

Below is the household income distribution for Kingsport and the household median income for Kingsport is $34,391.  In the graph below there are 2,636 people who earn less than $10,000  classifying them as living in poverty.

I challenge the elected officials to venture outside of their social and political groups and try to understand the plight of the majority of wage earners in the Kingsport area.  The medical school would bring jobs, but some of these jobs will be imported jobs and the common folks would not have the background or training for these jobs.  Ask what you can do to raise the standard of living (higher income) for Kingsport citizens without imposing a property tax burden.

I feel that the taxpayers should not be taking the risk of funding a medical school when there already is a state funded one in Johnson City.  The need for doctors in this area is questionable since the population is declining in Sullivan County.  If they area has trouble attracting doctors or keeping doctors, then take a hard look at the reason.

Quality of Life issues are important, but a good Standard of Living for local folks just might make the area prosper by increased spending by the majority of citizens.

The bottom line is that the area needs good paying jobs without the additional burden on the taxpayers.

I need to point out that no funding has been voted on so far, but projects such as this grows legs very fast and then its then to late to react.  The intent of this post is to make you aware of the issues so you can make your views know.  Update:  Many elected officials have expressed their support of this project including Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey who may make it a part of his campaign for governor.  Again, I must point out that I am not against the project but am very concerned about it being funded by taxpayers.

Please contact your elected officials and tell them NO to a taxpayer funded denominational medical school.  Click on the email links below and add your comments in your own email program.

The May, 2009 unemployment rate for the City of Kingsport was 12.6 percent.  Retail sales growth is not keeping up with the inflation rate and Kingsport has a declining population. The Kingsport area, in a recent report by Kiplinger, has the highest cost of living, the lowest household income, and the worst job growth in Tennessee. See the link Kingsport Facts

Kingsport, as I have said many times needs to get industry to locate here that offer good paying jobs.  More retail jobs aren’t needed.  Get the good paying jobs first and then retail jobs will open up.

After giving it much thought, I have come to the collusion that the City of Kingsport, Chamber of Commerce, Networks, and Sullivan County are not capable of getting the type of jobs that the area needs.  I’m sorry that I have to be blunt, but it is the truth and in my view these organizations are nothing more than a social/political club that cater to special interest groups.  Look at the facts!  Sure, there have been some gains, but these have been mostly in the retail/food areas.

We need the involvement of the State of Tennessee to help get jobs here.  The State was able to help Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Clarksville get new manufacturing firms to locate in those cities and North Carolina was able to woo Google and Apple Computer to locate to North Carolina.  North Carolina has changed some of its laws to make it easier for firms to locate to North Carolina.  Because of the changes made at the state level in North Carolina, they will get an Apple Computer $1billion datacenter that will be built not far from the Google datacenter in Lenoir, NC.  North Carolina also gave incentives to get these firms to locate to North Carolina.

Kingsport has relied too long on Eastman and it is time to get other firms here.  Get rid of the mindset that economic growth is retail and get new people in those organizations that can go after manufacturing and technology firms.  The economic development direction that the Kingsport area has been using is quite simple not working.  See the link, Best and Worst Cities in Tennessee

The Higher Education Center is good, but I get the impression that the city thinks that firms will come to the city in droves because we have a bunch of smart cookies here.  Upper Mississippi, I am sure did not wait to build a higher education center to attract car makers or did Lenoir, NC wait to have the type of employees that Google wanted trained before going after the Google business.

The time to act is now!  The population of Kingsport has declined.  Having more educated people trained at the Higher Education Center and the lack of jobs that would be attractive to them will insure that the declining population will get worse as they look elsewhere for employment.

Ask your state, county,and city elected officials what have they done to help spur economic growth for the area.  Ask them for specific results and then you can decide if they are helping the area with good paying job growth.

Here are the 361 U.S. metropolitan areas that Kiplinger’s Personal Finance considered for its list of Best Cities: It’s All About Jobs. See where your city ranks by sorting our criteria. The Cost of Living Index is based on 100 being the national average. To learn more about the creative class, click here. Salary Growth is the increase in household income from 2004 to 2008. Employment Growth is the growth in jobs on a per capita basis from 2000 to 2007. (Source: Kevin Stolarick of the Martin Prosperity Institute)

Click on the following link to see all 361 U.S. metropolitan areas .  Full City Rankings 2009

Best and Worst Cities in Tennessee

Below is data for Tennessee metropolitan areas that has been extracted from the list of 361 cities.

The data for a given column below that is highlighted in Green is the best for the Tennessee metropolitan areas mentioned below.  If the data is in Red, then that metropolitan area has the lowest or worst data for the metropolitan areas below.

The rank is stated below within parenthesis ( ) and shows the rank as compared for all 361 U.S. metropolitan areas.  A rank of 1 would be the best and a rank of 361 would be the worst

In the table below, we can see that the Kingsport area has the highest cost of living, the lowest household income, and the worst job growth.

How about some action from North East Tennessee officials to get industry to locate to the Sullivan County area?

CHATTANOOGA – After landing Volkswagen’s first major supplier in Hamilton County, officials said it and other firms will defray some of the $100 million cost of preparing Enterprise South industrial park.

Gestamp Corp., which on Thursday unveiled plans to build a $90 million plant and employ at least 230 people within three years at the Chattanooga site, is paying for the land, unlike Volkswagen.

Read more via Hamilton to cover some costs of $90M Gestamp plant : Business : Knoxville News Sentinel.

Investment in automotive manufacturing in the Chattanooga area continues to climb.

Gestamp Corp. today announced plans to invest $90 million to build an auto parts stamping plant in Chattanooga’s Enterprise South Industrial Park that could create 230 jobs within three years.

Read more via Auto parts maker to build $90M Chattanooga plant : Business : Knoxville News Sentinel.

Sperling’s Best Places have ranked over 400 cities that looked at economy and jobs,cost of living, climate, education, health and healthcare, crime, transportation, leisure, arts and culture, and quality of life to determine a ranking for every metro area in the U.S., plus 27 Canadian cities.

Below are Tennessee cities that show the 2007 rank as compared to its 2004 rank.  Knoxville, TN is the only Tennessee city that showed an improvement in rank, while all other Tennessee cities in the table below lost rank.  You can see other cities by clicking on the link below.

Analyzing more than 400 metro areas in the U.S. and Canada using dozens of variables, the newly published, second edition of Cities Ranked and Rated written by Bert Sperling and Peter Sander and published by Frommer’s, is the ultimate sourcebook for anyone looking to find the best place to live – or who’s hungry to know how their hometown compares.

Where magazine surveys only show the big picture, Cities Ranked and Rated, 2nd Edition, lets you drill way down to find the percentage of white- versus blue-collar jobs, the number of annual days below zero degrees Fahrenheit, the cost for an average doctor visit and even the number of Starbucks in a given metro area. Extensive tables show you America’s most literate cities, the best states for long summer evenings, and the places with the cheapest car insurance.

Cities Ranked and Rated, 2nd Edition, finally boils down all the variables into an overall city rating.

1. Gainesville, FL
2. Bellingham, WA
3. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
4. Colorado Springs, CO
5. Ann Arbor, MI
6. Ogden-Clearfield, UT
7. Asheville, NC
8. Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
9. San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
10. Boise City-Nampa, ID

See complete rankings

Gainesville, home to the University of Florida, has "gained popularity among northern migrants seeking a Florida climate and intellectual stimulation without the high prices, tourist bustle, and stigma most commonly associated with the state," according to the authors. The book also highlights Gainesville’s recreational opportunities, arts venues, opportunities for small businesses and small-town Southern feel.

The nation’s least desirable place to live, meanwhile, is Modesto, CA, which scored a 0 on the book’s 100-point scale. Modesto’s lack of things to do, high cost of living and high unemployment rate contributed to this ranking, according to the book. In addition, "crime continues to be a real as well as an image problem," and "it was recently noted as having the highest auto theft rate in the nation," the authors note.

One of the sideshows in the developing budget battle is the possibility that Senate Republicans have, perhaps unintentionally,, voted to take $5.1 million in incentive funding tied to the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga and gives it to Eastman Chemical in Kingsport (coincidentally located in Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey’s district).

That’s Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber’s read on the Senate Republican budget, as reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

Read more via Does GOP Budget Take From VW and Give to Eastman? | Humphrey on the Hill | knoxnews.com.

The real estate house prices in the Kingsport area appears to have stopped its rising trend.

Kingsport area had one of the largest 1st quarter 2009 house price decrease of all of the cities in United States that are listed in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (HPI report.

Kingsport’s first quarter house prices were down –2.9 percent.  This gave Kingsport a rank of 288 out of 294 MSA’s ranked on the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (HPI report. There were six other MSA’s that had a lower 2009 first quarter than Kingsport and they are:

Much has been said about the housing values in the Kingsport area. It seem that Kingsport is not doing as well despite what the local politicians have stated.  While it is true that Kingsport did beat other Tennessee areas with its one year growth of 1.27 percent, but, one needs also to look at what has happened in the first quarter of 2009 and also look at the 5-year growth.

There are other areas of Tennessee that did not experience the loss that Kingsport had in the first quarter of 2009 and the other areas have an equal or better 5-year growth.

The table below show other Tennessee areas that are not ranked in the home price index report.

(Estimates above use all-transactions HPI which includes purchase and refinance mortgages)

**Note: Rankings based on annual percentage change, for all MSAs containing at least 15,000 transactions over the last 10 years.

The graph below shows the last nine quarters for the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA MSA.

Data below is used for above graph.

++ 28700 Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area
Principal Cities: Kingsport, TN; Bristol, TN; Bristol, VA
Hawkins County, TN; Sullivan County, TN; Scott County, VA; Washington County, VA; Bristol city, VA

Investments for 2009 reach $2.2 billion

In a time of smaller business investment nationwide, Tennessee is leading the country in landing the biggest business deals.

Among the top 10 biggest business announcements in North America last year, two were in Tennessee, according to the annual report of such deals by Site Selection magazine.

Read more via Chattanooga Times Free Press | Tennessee tops ‘big deal’ list.

Four Tennessee cities made the list for Allergy Capitals.

There is no place safe from allergies in America, and some cities are more problematic than others. The Allergy Capitals is an annual research project of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) to identify “the 100 most challenging places to live with allergies” in the spring and fall seasons. The rankings are based on scientific analysis of 3 factors for 100 metro areas. The data measured and compared each year includes:

• Pollen scores (airborne grass/tree/weed pollen and mold spores)*

• Number of allergy medications used per patient

• Number of allergy specialists per patient

Top 5 Spring Capitals for 2009:

1. Louisville, KY
2. Knoxville, TN
3. Charlotte, NC
4. Madison, WI
5. Wichita, KS

Click here for the complete rankings of the new 100 Spring Allergy Capitals!

Read more via Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America