Oak Ridge Today

Guest column: Tax hike will hurt city’s ability to recruit DOE workers

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The Oak Ridge Schools are requesting a substantial property tax increase to fund items they see as essential to their future.

Yet an Oak Ridge tax hike will markedly reduce our city’s ability to recruit new U.S. Department of Energy workers. According to the latest DOE report, Anderson County is losing over $300,000 per week to Knox County in DOE payroll. That loss rate is increasing, and a tax hike would make this serious problem worse.

Unfortunately, our city has a DOE “isolation fence” around it. In most cases, new workers are sent by the DOE system directly to Knox County—mainly to Farragut. And as a result, their important housing decisions are made without talking to an Oak Ridge realtor. They never get an opportunity to find out how wonderful it is to live here.

The new Kroger store won’t affect this uneven playing field. A property tax hike (of any size) will simply make the problem worse—giving Farragut an even greater advantage over us. [Read more…]

Guest column: AC Commission needs to stay involved with mall project

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Declining DOE Residency Hurts Anderson County

In 2003, the Anderson County Commission approved a county subsidy for a revitalization project at the Oak Ridge Mall.

Had that project succeeded, it would have generated a substantial increase in county revenue, allowing tax rates to be lowered. A successful mall project would have also helped stabilize the U.S. Department of Energy payroll gap with Knox County. Stabilizing this gap would have generated nearly $100 million more in DOE payroll for the Anderson County economy—in this year alone.

Obviously, the potential economic benefit from a successful mall project is huge.

To give the project the best chance for success, the Commission needs to couple the requested mall subsidy to four key Commission actions: [Read more…]

Guest column: Selling Oak Ridge to the DOE workforce

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Change in DOE Payroll Chart

by David Stanley

Our city urgently needs to market Oak Ridge to the local U.S. Department of Energy workforce. That workforce brings a billion dollar payroll into East Tennessee each year. Unfortunately, the Oak Ridge economy sees very little of this money.

Over the last two decades, the erosion of DOE residency has cost the City of Oak Ridge a great deal of payroll. The problem looks even worse when one considers the concurrent payroll increase of our city’s competition. For example, over those two decades the gap between the annual Oak Ridge and Knox County DOE payrolls grew by $130 million dollars. That’s just the growth in the gap. The total gap in DOE payroll between Oak Ridge and Knox County is now approximately $270 million dollars per year.

No wonder Turkey Creek and so many new housing developments have gone over there. That’s where the DOE payroll went! [Read more…]