Dec. 26—MITCHELL — Data is useful, but it's not always the easiest to understand.
That's why a new agreement between Dakota Wesleyan University, the South Dakota Secretary of State's Office and local economic development leaders will be important in helping turn raw business data into a more useful form for interpretation.
"(We're) partnering with Dakota Wesleyan University to help us with the survey and analytics. Their business department is going to be working with us on that and putting it together," said Mike Lauritsen, workforce and housing director with the Mitchell Area Development Corporation.
Lauritsen is referring to the planned quarterly business and economic data analysis report, which will be a rebirth of a similar report that was regularly compiled for years by Northern State University in Aberdeen. Northern State discontinued its participation in the project a few years ago, but Lauritsen said it was time to bring the report back.
Lauritsen was part of the team that kickstarted the original economic report about a decade ago, having worked with former South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant as the state director of business services and later as a deputy commissioner of school and public lands. During his work at the state level, Lauritsen and his fellow staffers picked up on the idea of producing such a report from other states.
Businesses in South Dakota must register with the secretary of state's office for, among other things, tax filing and annual reports. That data was available from the state and could serve as grist for a statewide economic report that could be useful in economic development circles.
"I want to say we stole the idea from Georgia or Nevada, as both of them were doing this. We were talking and sharing ideas and one of those ideas was an economic report, and we thought that was genius," Lauritsen said. "So what we did was start compiling that data and putting out an economic report."
Despite access to the raw data at the state level, Lauritsen and his colleagues were not economists, and compiling and collating the information into more accessible charts and graphs proved to be a daunting task.
It was later when he was attending a student voter registration event that a chance discussion with an official at Northern State led to the Aberdeen school taking over the compiling and analysis of the data from the secretary of state office.
"We worked with them and fed them the data and they started putting the reports together, and they got much better, as opposed to when it was done by those of us who weren't trained economists," Lauritsen said.
The reports take the raw data and break it down into a number of categories presented in an easy-to-absorb format. Those who read the report can track statistics like taxable sales, employment and new business filings, new entity filings, trademark filings and the statewide unemployment rate as it compares to national figures.
It makes the data easily digestible for people in economic development, who crave hard data but aren't necessarily trained to interpret raw information like those in higher education business departments.
"This stuff is fascinating. I'm not an economist and I'm not trained in any of this, but once you start to dig into the data, it is so interesting," Lauritsen said.
He used the example of a report on gross sales tax in Mitchell. When presented in the form the report takes, two spikes are evident during the year in reported gross sales tax, one in January and one in June. The spike in January is the result of taxes taken in in December and then reported in January. Obviously, that spike is a result of increased spending during Christmas.
But Lauritsen said he doesn't know what the spike in June indicates. And he may not have noticed it if it hadn't been presented in a graph form. Now they can continue their research into the mystery increase, find out why it happened and find ways to exploit whatever factor is causing it.
"I don't know what the June spike is. Until you graph it, you really don't see it. But once they do that, you can see that something is going on here. We discovered something," Lauritsen said.
The report will now be compiled by faculty and students at Dakota Wesleyan University after Lauritsen took his current position with the development corporation and was interested in restarting the report.
The effort is being coordinated by Tracy Dice at the Dakota Wesleyan business school, according to Julie Brookbank, Dakota Wesleyan associate director of communications.
Like Lauritsen, Dakota Wesleyan foresees the project providing a valuable resource that can benefit not only Mitchell, but the state as a whole and potentially the southeast corner of the state specifically.
"Dakota Wesleyan University is excited to participate in this important project. Dr. Tracy Dice, associate professor of business and economics in the Musick Family Department of Business, will design a set of projects for students enrolled in economics classes that will integrate the collection of data and anecdotal information for analysis. The end result will be the publication of a bi-annual economic report for Davison County and the state's southeastern region on both macro and micro levels," Brookbank said in a statement.
In addition to benefiting economic developers in the state, the work entailed in compiling the report will be a hands-on learning experience for Dakota Wesleyan students under the guidance of their professors.
"This type of project is critical to the overall economic health and development of our state. Partnering with the South Dakota Secretary of State's office and workforce and economic development in Mitchell will greatly enhance our students' experience. We have the paperwork completed and plan to launch the project starting this spring semester," the statement read.
While the state does charge a fee for some specific information sets, the data for the reports is being provided at no charge.
Leadership in the current secretary of state's office concurs that information from the office, once refined by Dakota Wesleyan, should provide economic leaders with insight that they may not otherwise have had.
Like Lauritsen, Johnson has also has had her eye on restarting the report.
"I am very excited to start this collaboration with DWU for the quarterly economic report," said Monae Johnson, secretary of state for South Dakota. "When I came into office a year ago, that is one project that I wanted to work on. Collaborating with partners in sharing our business data is one way that our office can help the public in making their decisions about their business' future."
Compiling the report will not only provide guidance for economic development leaders and the businesses in their communities, it will also serve to help improve information systems at the state level, Johnson said.
"The secretary of state office uses all data from our reports to budget for the future to make improvements to our systems so that we have a streamlined, efficient process for all the business community to file their reports," Johnson said.
While the project is still being organized, Lauritsen would like to put out the first new economic report for the first quarter of 2024, with a target publishing date in April once new data from January through March is available. Assuming all goes smoothly, he would like to increase the frequency of the report to monthly.
He understands the report will be a work in progress — it was when he first helped put it together years ago. Once things are rolling he expects the reports to improve in organization and presentation. When it hits its stride it should be an invaluable resource to himself and others around the state.
He's excited to see what the data reveals, and how it can help Mitchell and its business owners.
"It will help us tell the story of what we do and why we do it," Lauritsen said "Our goal is to grow the economy in Mitchell. That's what we do and that's why we're here."
