It's well known that things are bigger in Texas, and that's certainly true of the

Photo of Gov. Perry ©2006 Bob Daemmrich Photo, Inc, Austin, Texas.

number of new facilities announced in 2005, earning Texas Gov. Rick Perry a second consecutive Governor's Cup.

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ven if Texas had simply matched its winning 2004 number of new and expanded facilities (668) in Site Selection's annual Governor's Cup competition, it would easily have won again 2005. But it far exceeded that number in this year's ranking with 842 qualifying new or expanded facilities, earning Gov. Rick Perry the Site Selection Governor's Cup for the second year in a row. It was hardly a photo finish. Runners up Ohio, Illinois and Michigan were unable to crack the 600 mark, although Ohio came within a hair's breadth of that figure, with 598.
   Site Selection publisher Conway Data, Inc., has been tracking business expansion activity for more than 40 years.

New Corporate Facilities and Expansions, 2003-2005

click above to view expansion chart

The Governor's Cup and other awards bestowed by the magazine are determined by the number of qualified projects logged into Conway Data's New Plant database. Qualifying projects involve a capital investment of at least US$1 million, create 50 or more jobs or involve new floor space of at least 20,000 square feet (1,860 sq. m.).
   Texas finished the race in a big way, in keeping with things Texan, and certain projects in its 2005 lineup easily fit that bill. Hilmar Cheese Co. announced a new, 2,000-employee cheese factory in the northern panhandle town of Dalhart, which will process up to 5 million pounds of locally produced milk into cheese and whey products each day. Tyson Foods is bringing 1,600 jobs to Sherman to staff a meat-packing plant that will package more than 6 million pounds of beef and pork each week. And T-Mobile is bringing 850 new jobs to its new technology campus in Frisco, boosting employment there to 1,200 by relocating employees from other locations. Once fully operational, the project will expand T-Mobile's total Texas work force by 30 percent.
   "We're still taking aggressive steps to ensure that this state remains business friendly," Gov. Rick Perry told Site Selection in early February upon his return from a trip to Iraq to visit Texans serving in the armed forces there.
   "There was the tort reform we passed in 2003 and the workers' compensation reform, we maintained our favorable tax climate, and we implemented some innovative work force development initiatives." One such initiative is the T-STEM program that upgrades high school math and science curricula. "We want our high school students to be ready for college and for the high-tech work force."
   Tax reform is under way in Texas after the state's Supreme Court ruled the current system for funding education is unconstitutional, because it relies too heavily on property taxes. A Texas Tax Reform Commission appointed by the governor is studying alternative ways to fund schools that could involve new business taxes, such as a gross receipts tax.
   "Commission Chairman John Sharp is hearing, including from me, that we want a tax system that is very broad based, that is as light on the job creators in Texas as can be, but that modernizes or gets away from the capital intensives being the ones paying all the property taxes," says Perry. "It also should lower substantially the property tax burden on property owners in this state and appropriately fund our public schools. I'm comfortable they will find that solution. If it's a job killer, we're not interested — it won't pass.
   "This legislature is too committed to job creation to ever vote otherwise."