Off Beat: Job zone less job than zone

There was plenty of excitement last month when the Yuba-Sutter Enterprise Zone won a new reauthorization from the state, through 2021.

The EZ is always presented as having an important impact on the local jobs picture, which is never so hot to being with.

There are 42 EZs statewide, all offering a bevy of tax incentives and other benefits to business. The EZs are "the state's largest economic development program," according to the study released last month by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Do EZs achieve their goal for job creation? PPIC's report comes to an unfortunate observation: "Our main conclusion is that, on average, enterprise zones have no effect on business creation or job growth."

The folks at PPIC crunched a lot of numbers about the zones, finding that they "have no statistically significant effect on either employment levels or employment growth rates."

The study doesn't break down figures for each EZ, so it's not possible to know if the Yuba-Sutter zone does worse or better than the others.

"The lack of effect on employment is surprising," the study's authors noted. "Employment growth is an explicit goal of the program and, according to our survey, is the main focus of local zone managers."

They suggested that "even though the incentives are meant to increase employment, some of the benefits targeting machinery and property could lead to substitution away from labor. This might also explain why manufacturing-heavy zones show no positive employment effect, since manufacturing firms rely more than other firms on capital and land."

More than 30 zone administrators were interviewed by the authors.

"When we asked (them) to state the primary goal of the program, nearly all mentioned job growth; far fewer also explicitly mentioned reducing unemployment or poverty," the report said.

Making his Marc

If you were wondering whatever became of Marc Liebman, former superintendent of the Marysville Joint Unified School District, he was in China — but only temporarily.

Liebman was among 400 U.S. educators who traveled to China during a one-week educational tour in an effort to build and expand Chinese language programs in U.S. schools, according to a write-up in the Berryessa Sun, a paper that covers the Berryessa Union School District, where Liebman is superintendent.

According to the paper, "educators had an opportunity to meet with Chinese education leaders, build sister-school and city ties, and network with other U.S. school leaders who are bringing Chinese language programs to their districts and schools. Delegates visited Beijing, and traveled in small groups to other cities and provinces to meet with local education commissions. Chen, Liebman and Calhoun visited schools in the city of Wuhan in the Chinese province of Hubei."

Obviously, the Bok Kai events in Marysville helped Liebman prepare for the trip. Or not.