Pike County officials received a list of recommendations to reinvigorate and improve the county’s economic development efforts, and the name of an organization that can help them do it.
The next step in the process is up to the board of supervisors.
Sociology professor Vaughn L. Grisham, director of the University of Mississippi’s McLean Institute for Community Development. He evaluated the economic district at the county’s request, recommended that county officials contact Lee County’s Community Development Foundation in Tupelo as a consultant to help Pike County get its economic development program back on track.
He said foundation officials have agreed to work with county and economic development officials for a fee. No amount was specified, but Grisham said it would be “affordable.”
Pike County Economic Development District chairman James Wicker said the board of supervisors would have to determine whether to allocate the money for the fee.
Grisham’s recommendation of the Community Development Foundation came after an almost three-hour meeting Monday with county supervisors and the Economic Development District Board to discuss his evaluation.
During his presentation, Grisham addressed several issues affecting Pike County and the economic development district:
• The economic and population changes currently affecting Pike County are going on worldwide.
The biggest change is in manufacturing, where people are leaving farm jobs and heading for cities and manufacturing jobs.
• Approximately 20 to 21 percent of the jobs in Pike County are in manufacturing. The other three major areas of employment are education, health care and retail. And retail employment, Grisham said, will surpass manufacturing before the end of the decade.
• The economic development district is underfunded.
District 4 Supervisor Venton Ray Adams said the county assesses 1 to 1.5 mills for economic development, which produces about $225,000 annually for the district.
Grisham said county officials have to take several steps to increase economic development in Pike County, and much of the work should be done inside the county.
A key component, he said, is developing public-private partnerships to accomplish economic development goals.
“If there is anyone going in the same direction I’m going, I want to partner with them,” Grisham said. “If their goal is jobs, I want to partner with them.”
And the major partnership should be with education — particularly with Southwest Mississippi Community College.
“We are moving to a knowledge economy,” Grisham said. “When I speak of a knowledge economy, I’m not talking about college graduates. I’m talking about community colleges and vocational schools.”
More students, he said, go to community colleges than to universities, adding, “the county that has a community college will have a leg up on economic development,” because the community colleges provide the programs that can provide residents with the skills to work for businesses or start their own business.
Community colleges also are a source of training for most health care jobs, he said — not for doctors, but for nursing and other health care occupations.
While communities should hold on to their manufacturing jobs, Grisham said, those jobs are decreasing.
“As manufacturers close, former employees will have special skills, and they will need to be encouraged to use those skills to start their own businesses, or get retraining to work in another area,” he said.
“Community colleges are an asset,” Grisham said. “They make the community stronger. You need to partner with them, so by you helping them, they help you.”
Besides forming partnerships, Grisham said officials need to protect the jobs currently in the county by working with and helping existing businesses to survive.
They also need to encourage investment in the community by getting people to not only shop in Pike County but to move into the area and buy homes.
“You want a place where people will want to live — to buy a home, pay taxes, shop,” he said. “You’ve got to find a niche; something that will make people come to Pike County because they can make more money there than any place else. You create a community where they’re going to make money.”
Grisham said county officials need to attract people to participate in economic development.
“The goal is to have an economic development group so good that people will want to be a part of it,” he said. “People on the board who will realize that their business will prosper if Pike County prospers.”
“He’s given us some good ideas,” Adams said. “People have to work together and do what’s best for Pike County.”
Adams said the county has a task ahead of it to improve its economic development, adding that county officials will have to set their goals.
Wicker called the meeting “very good.
“Dr. Grisham is very knowledgeable, and I’m very grateful that we were able to get his help,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Wicker said at the close of the meeting. “But it’s a start. The issue now is where we need to go with it.”with it.”
