GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1993

H	1 

HOUSE BILL 1520*

Short Title:  TDA Infrastructure Funds.	(Public)
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Sponsors: Representatives H. Hunter; Bowman, Fitch, Adams, McCrary, and Jenkins.
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Referred to:  Appropriations.
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May 25, 1994

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO THE NORTH CAROLINA TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, INC., TO SUPPORT THE CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY AS STATEWIDE ENTREPRENEURIAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
Whereas, North Carolina entrepreneurial companies make increasingly important contributions to the State's economic development and it is therefore imperative that our State identify and support successful efforts to promote entrepreneurial development statewide; and
Whereas, to date, the General Assembly, through the North Carolina Technological Development Authority (TDA), has joined with more than a dozen communities from across the State to develop business incubators which have demonstrated that innovative entrepreneurs can succeed anywhere across North Carolina, provided they have access to the essential resources –  information, technology, capital, and management – needed for their growth; and
Whereas, this experience of TDA and community-sponsored small business incubators from across North Carolina has demonstrated such initiatives to be very efficient tools for local economic development, already accounting for some 1,800 new jobs by 203 companies, 26% of which have been women-owned and 28% of which have been minority-owned; and
Whereas, the success of these incubators shows that entrepreneurs can succeed anywhere in North Carolina when they have access to the necessary resources and that by integrating current and future business incubators into developing statewide information networks, communities from across the State will be able to provide entrepreneurs in their areas with access to the information and technological resources that will fuel their growth; and
Whereas, in order to realize the economic potential offered by entrepreneurial companies, these companies must be provided with efficient access to the State's growth resources wherever they may be located; and
Whereas, TDA's second decade strategy is to develop a statewide entrepreneurial infrastructure, as a statewide network of business incubators assisting the State's entrepreneurial companies, especially those in rural eastern and western North Carolina, to identify and transfer technology developed in the Research Triangle Park area into commercial applications, to identify and fund commercialization partnerships between the State's innovative entrepreneurs and existing North Carolina industry, and to provide access to growth capital, management assistance, and research applications for entrepreneurs from across North Carolina; Now, therefore,
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the North Carolina Technological Development Authority, Inc.,  the sum of eight million five hundred thousand dollars ($8,500,000) for the 1994-95 fiscal year to support the continued development of the Technological Development Authority as statewide entrepreneurial infrastructure.  These funds shall be used as follows:
(1)	The sum of two million five hundred thousand dollars ($2,500,000) shall be used to establish new business incubators in areas not currently served and enhance existing TDA-sponsored incubators, through the establishment of equivalent standard business support services for rural, as well as urban, incubators, and through integrating TDA incubators into statewide vehicles for recruiting and location of early-stage industrial development targets.
(2)	The sum of three million dollars ($3,000,000) shall be used to expand TDA's current Innovation Research Fund investment to support the identification and early-stage development of technological innovations developed in the State's research universities and to attract coinvestment and follow-on investment capital.
(3)	The sum of three million dollars ($3,000,000) shall be used to create and capitalize the North Carolina Rural Technology Development Fund to structure and finance the location of production operations for Research Triangle Park area and non-North Carolina technology-based companies into the rural areas of North Carolina, to capitalize or to facilitate capitalization of growth companies that can provide employment in rural areas of North Carolina, to support the identification and early-stage development of technological innovations developed in the State's research universities, and to attract coinvestment and follow-on investment capital into the State's rural areas.
Sec. 2.  This act becomes effective July 1, 1994.