Hoosier Enquirer Investigation: Public-Private Partnerships or Private Gain? Following the Money Behind Indiana's Economic Development Deals

By Hoosier Enquirer Staff and reported on X by @KColbertReport

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Economic development officials often describe public-private partnerships as engines of growth, job creation, and regional prosperity. Critics, however, have another description: taxpayer-funded deals negotiated largely behind closed doors.

Nowhere is that debate more visible than in southwest Indiana, where the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership (E-REP) has become one of the state's most influential regional economic development organizations. Organized as a 501(c)(6) business league, E-REP serves as a regional advocate for business recruitment, workforce initiatives, legislative priorities, and administration of major development programs, including work on the Southwest Indiana Regional Development Authority and READI initiatives.

The organization promotes itself as a partnership bringing together business leaders, local governments, and civic organizations to attract investment and strengthen the regional economy. Supporters credit that model with helping secure hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private investment across southwest Indiana.

But as public incentives continue to grow, so do questions about transparency.

Unlike elected city councils or county commissions, organizations such as E-REP are not themselves elected governmental bodies. Yet they frequently participate in negotiations involving publicly funded infrastructure, incentive packages, site selection efforts, and projects ultimately financed with taxpayer dollars. That blending of public authority and private-sector advocacy has prompted some watchdogs to ask where the public's right to know begins and ends.

One recurring point of controversy involves confidentiality agreements.

Major economic development projects are frequently negotiated before public announcements, with officials arguing that confidentiality is necessary to prevent competing states from recruiting away prospective employers or disrupting negotiations. Businesses often insist that premature disclosure could reveal proprietary information or influence real estate markets.

Critics counter that once public money, tax abatements, grants, or publicly financed infrastructure become part of the discussion, the public has a legitimate interest in understanding the commitments being made on its behalf.

The debate became significant enough that legislation was introduced in the Indiana General Assembly to prohibit state agencies and other public authorities from entering economic development agreements containing provisions that prevent disclosure of contract terms. Although that proposal did not become law, its introduction reflected growing concern among some lawmakers regarding secrecy in publicly supported development projects.

Whether particular confidentiality agreements are lawful depends on the specific facts, the applicable statutes, and the terms of the agreements. Indiana's Access to Public Records Act generally favors disclosure of government records but also contains exemptions, including certain records involving negotiations and economic development before transactions are completed. Those exemptions have often become the subject of legal disputes over how broadly they should apply.

That legal framework leaves an important policy question unanswered: How much secrecy is appropriate when taxpayer resources are on the table?

E-REP's own publicly available filings illustrate the organization's growing influence. IRS filings report millions of dollars in annual revenue and significant assets, while audited financial statements describe its mission as strengthening the regional business environment through economic development initiatives.

The organization also performs administrative work for the Southwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, which has overseen Regional Cities and READI investments involving tens of millions of dollars in state-supported development funding.

For investigative journalists, the next step is not speculation but documentation.

Public records requests could seek correspondence between E-REP and local governments, development agreements, memoranda of understanding, records describing public incentive packages, communications with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and any confidentiality agreements executed by governmental entities in connection with publicly funded projects.

Those records could help answer fundamental questions:

• Who negotiated the incentives?

• What public resources were committed?

• When were elected officials informed?

• Were confidentiality agreements executed by governmental entities?

• What records remain withheld from public inspection, and under what legal authority?

  
  

Supporters of the current system argue confidentiality is often indispensable to recruiting employers in a fiercely competitive national marketplace. They contend that requiring every negotiation to occur in public could drive projects to competing states before agreements are finalized.

Critics respond that economic development should not require the public to trust agreements they cannot examine until after decisions have effectively been made.

As Indiana continues investing billions of dollars in industrial recruitment, data centers, manufacturing, and infrastructure, one principle remains widely shared regardless of political affiliation: taxpayers deserve confidence that public dollars are being committed transparently, lawfully, and in the public interest.

For Hoosier Enquirer, the story is not whether public-private partnerships should exist.

The story is whether the public has sufficient visibility into how those partnerships operate when taxpayer resources are placed on the negotiating table.