Tim Lawless, AZRE Magazine September/October 2010

Job recovery has been sluggish as it relates to commercial real estate. However, if the cranes near ASU are any indication, economic activity appears to be looking up.

It’s also encouraging the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revised upward the number of national non-farm jobs created in August and September and that job gains through 10 months in 2014 were on average 228,500 per month, or 14 percent more than in 2013.

Adding to this optimism was the election of pro-business gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey, who has vowed to make job creation his first priority. It is expected that one of his first actions will be the continuation of a moratorium on new rules and regulations that impede job creation. We can also expect him to make many forays into California so that the jobs that leave that state come here rather than elsewhere.

To be sure, the current state budget deficit and a more daunting structural deficit the following year will be felt by all due to expected spending cuts. The budget situation, however, creates the opportunity to reform many aspects of state and local government service delivery not the least is K-12 education. Certainly, we can do a better job to get more money as a percentage of every dollar spent into the classroom than we did since the passage of Prop. 301 in 2000.

Because of the budget, NAIOP-AZ’s top state priority will be to preserve the assessment ratio reduction savings for commercial property taxation passed into law in 2011 (HB2001). We need to send the signal that we will continue to address our top impediment to economic development which are high commercial property taxes.

Along with Ducey, NAIOP-AZ will fight any effort to impose new taxes on business which includes a new temporary sales tax rate increase or to expand the sales tax base to include currently exempt goods and services from the State base such as commercial leases.

TimLawless1

Tim Lawless
NAIOP-AZ President