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The questions Warren City Council members asked recently about Warren Worx are good ones.
Council members questioned what measurable results Warren Worx' efforts have produced, whether companies featured in Warren Worx marketing efforts had experienced increased sales, website traffic or hiring as a result of the marketing efforts or how many people who live outside Warren County and commute into the county have done so because of Warren Worx. There is also no data if local employers are filling job openings because of Warren Worx' marketing.
The questions are warranted. There is a lot of public money being spent on Warren Worx, and it's a positive development that council members are trying to make sure that taxpayers' money is being spent wisely. There are no answers to those questions because there were no agreed upon measurements at the start of the process. Antoinette Lindell, president and CEO of the Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry, told council members that WCCBI needs to develop harder measurements going forward.
That is too late, in our opinion.
How to measure whether or not taxpayer money was well spent should have been developed before a check was written. The time to decide how to measure the success of Warren Worx was before the effort started. It should have been part of the initial funding pitch, especially to entities that are funding Warren Worx with tax money.
Now, city, county and school district officials are in a difficult position. No one knows if previous funding has paid off and more funding requests are coming – with no measurement yet to determine if the Warren Worx effort is working well enough to justify more money. Should funding continue on a leap of faith? Or should local officials push for changes to Warren Worx that keep what we know works while abandoning loftier, but almost impossible to quantify, goals like reversing population loss?
We called this from the beginning stating that the Warren Worx effort was unlikely to be able to achieve the lofty goal for which it was formed. Now, after spending at least $375,000 of city and county taxpayer money over the past two years, it's time for an evaluation of the program. If the program can't show solid results, it should be dissolved and work simply returned to WCCBI to do in its existing budget.
Warren Worx has spent $375,000 with no way to determine if that money was actually well spent or not. That should resonate with the city and county as 2027 funding requests are made. A full itemized budget needs to be disclosed to the city and county. If one can't be produced, Warren Worx should be dissolved.