Grant Welker, WBJ news editor
October 11, 2019
WBJ's Welker honored for tax-break series
The New England Newspaper & Press Association on Thursday awarded WBJ News Editor Grant Welker one of its Publick Occurrences Awards for his four-part series on commercial tax breaks in Central Massachusetts.
"The antithesis of 'gotcha' journalism, Worcester's well-written series represents public service of the highest order," NENPA judges wrote in their comments on Welker's series.
For the series Tax Breaks: Paying For Growth, which ran in January and February, Welker made public records requests of 19 communities in Central Massachusetts and examined 148 tax-increment financing agreements between 1998 and 2018. Among Welker's findings was 12% of these agreements failed to meet their job creation or investment targets and often communities with the highest business tax rates gave the most tax breaks.
"The way communities use incentives to help some businesses grow has long been debated by economists for how effective they are, and even whether they can choose winners or losers among a business community because so few get them; and they're often larger companies with more of a financial ability to expand," Welker said. "This was a critical topic for us to focus on, especially with how public officials can make trade-offs with other financial needs or balancing the importance they see in bringing in new jobs or filling vacant spaces."
NENPA gave out 16 Publick Occurrences Awards to various publications around the region at its annual New England Newspaper Conference in Worcester. WBJ was the only business journal to win a Publick Occurrences Award.
The fourth part of Welker's series examined stadium financing agreements around the country, particularly as they relate to Worcester's plan to build a $101-million municipal baseball stadium for the Pawtucket Red Sox for when the minor league team moves to Worcester in 2021.
"Welker's story on the Pawtucket Red Sox relocation deal, said to be the lynchpin of Worcester's redevelopment program, likewise offers plenty of examples of what can go wrong -- and occasionally right," the NENPA judges wrote.
"With the city's major investment in the new ballpark, we wanted to take a look at other recent publicly-financed deals nationally for minor-league ballparks," Welker said. "We found developments that didn't reach expectations or, in some cases where new development did follow the building of a stadium, there couldn't be a demonstrated cause-and-effect."
WBJ's sister publication MaineBiz in Portland was honored at the NENPA event as well, receiving a Distinguished Specialty Publication honor in the New England Newspaper of the Year competition.
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