It's a question that folks in the suburbs have been asking since memory runneth not to the contrary: How do you keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Paree? Here in Arkansas, folks in Saline County may have found an answer. Why not bring jobs to them? So they can stay home, contribute to the local economy and thrive while doing their part to help others to prosper, too.
The economy, after all, is not some zero sum game in which one player's gain must necessarily be all the others' loss. If there aren't enough slices of the pie to go around, why not increase the size of the pie? And the people of Saline County have been doing just that decade after decade. Until that county has become the state's third-fastest growing, putting it right behind Washington and Benton counties in the northwest part of the state.
Since the last census was taken in 2010, Saline County's population has grown 11 percent, and the good news may only have started to come.
Saline County's diverse economy is being driven by its retail and food-service sectors, but its big employers also include schools and hospitals. Not bad for a county once dismissed as a backwater on the state's economic map. County Judge Jeff Arey hopes to attract more manufacturing and technology-centered investors through Saline County's Career and Technical Education Center even if--small detail--it has yet to be built.
Make no small plans, an urban designer once advised, and there's nothing small about Saline County's. This jobs center would serve a wide variety of Saline County's recent high-school graduates who aren't sure whether they want to go on to college now, later, or at all. Hopes and dreams are not easily catalogued.
But are the county's taxpayers ready to invest in its continued progress? The new jobs center would cost $38.45 million to build, but there is a plan to raise the money through a three-eighths percent increase in the county's sales tax, which would come complete with a sunset clause. So the tax increase would be off the books automatically in some 12 years. This is called looking--and planning--ahead.
The whole plan is workable, but only if Saline County's voters are willing to adopt it. Now let's see if its voters are ready, willing and able to forge ahead as its young people are eager to work.
So stand back and watch Saline County. It's moving into the fast lane when it comes to setting new records in the state's development. And all of Arkansas will wish the county well. Because what's good for Saline County is good for the rest of the state.
Editorial on 04/20/2018