Maine Doesn't Make All-Star Line-Up

Just prior to the All Star baseball game that showcased the best in major league talent, NBC News reported that their affiliate, CNBC, released its list of America's Top States for Business. In the starting line up of states that make business and jobs their passion, Maine was out of contention.

Among the 50 states, Maine did move up one place to number 39 compared to the prior year's overall rankings. The best among the 50 franchises was Texas followed by Virginia and Colorado. Among the New England states, Massachusetts was 5th, New Hampshire 19th, Connecticut 35th, Vermont 37th and Rhode Island 49th.

These overall state rankings were a compilation of ten different scores measuring everything from the cost of doing business to transportation. Maine's quality of life ranked 6th among all states. Though we tout our wonderful quality of place, there were five others that ranked better in both this measure and overall business-friendly scores with the exception of Hawaii, another tourism-dependent franchise.

Maine inched forward one position from 40th to 39th when measuring the cost to run a business. But when assessing our workforce, CNBC dropped Maine two places from 45th to 47th. This is one of the most important factors for business according to most employer surveys as it rates education levels, availability of workers and union activity.

If attaining the status of simply being average is an accomplishment, then Maine scored big time for its economy moving from 26th to 25th. This rating measured basic indicators of economic health and growth. The lack of major corporations located in Maine appeared to hold us back from a higher ranking.

The state was dinged for its transportation infrastructure dropping from 36th to 41st. Maine did not score well for availability of airline flights, quality of roads or the value of goods shipped by all modes of transportation.

The state remained stuck at 41st for Technology and Innovation which measures funding for innovation, patents issued to residents and deployment of broadband internet. With the introduction of the Three Ring Binder project that will bring high-speed internet connectivity to more Maine enterprises as well as recent research and development grants, Maine should move up in this bellwether ranking in the next few years.

Education was acknowledged as the key to providing a skilled workforce. This measure included elementary and secondary education test scores, class size and spending. Maine improved from 8th to 7th in the nation by these objective measures. However, understanding that we have one of the highest costs for K-12 education in the nation as well as one of the lowest teacher-to-student ratios, one might assume that our K-12 scores masked our less than adequate funding for the state's universities and community colleges.

Regulation and litigation were measured to determine business-friendly rankings in which Maine dropped four places from 24th to 28th. Next came access to investment capital, a rating in which Maine shared the bottom ranking with a dozen other states.

Finally, when measuring what we pay for pay for food, housing, energy and other monthly expenses (cost of living), Maine dropped from 38th to 39th.

There's no question that Maine can do better as most of these measures are based in public policy decisions made in Augusta. If all state are roughly equal under federal law, it is the decisions made in state capitols that differentiate us. If we took some lessons from seemingly similar-sized states that were ranked in the top third over all, we could begin to work our way up the ratings. For example, Iowa (6th), North Dakota (7th), South Dakota (12th), Nebraska (13th) and Wyoming (14th) all did better than Maine and all had a lower cost of living.