Summer unofficially starts next week, and that means it’s time for our annual word cloud.

New this year to the top ten terms are tax and data, reflecting our efforts to share information about tax abatement disclosure guidelines from GASB as well as several posts addressing tax increment financing (TIF). We’ve also had a heavy emphasis on data collection and management for compliance monitoring and program evaluation.

Goals, benefits as well as business and investment continue to be leading themes. We’ve been focusing on state programs and evaluations, but look for more emphasis on local incentive programs in the coming months.