By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: October 14, 2013 5:05 PM

Michigan Economic Development Corporation CEO Michael Finney recently defended his agency from critical news media coverage it received after an audit showed the MEDC had reported inaccurate figures about the number of jobs created through the 21st Century Jobs Trust Fund.

The audit showed that the MEDC had reported to the Legislature that one of the funds in the program had 75 percent of fund recipients meet their job creation targets when in fact just 19 percent had done so. Still, Mr. Finney pushed back in a media counteroffensive, insisting his staff had not inflated jobs numbers, saying the 19 percent was largely the result of one firm filing for bankruptcy and noting the audit described the MEDC’s management of the fund as effective.

In a letter to the editor in the Detroit Free Press and at a hearing before skeptical lawmakers, Mr. Finney took pains to note the program was created during the administration of former Governor Jennifer Granholm. He did not mention Ms. Granholm’s name, but there was no mistaking whom he meant when he said “different administration.”

But Treasurer Andy Dillon’s testimony under oath, as part of the Detroit bankruptcy case, unearthed an uncomfortable development Friday in Mr. Finney’s attempt to hang problems stemming from the 21st Century Jobs Fund on Ms. Granholm. It turns out Mr. Dillon first met Mr. Snyder as Mr. Dillon was working with now-U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland), then a state rep, on the 21st Century Jobs Fund legislation.

“I drove to Ann Arbor to meet him because Governor Granholm at the time had announced the 21st Century Jobs Fund plan, I had a private equity background, but not a venture capital background and his name came to me as someone who understood venture capital,” Mr. Dillon said, according to a draft transcript of the deposition. “I asked for a meeting, drove to Ann Arbor, we met for (a) half-hour to an hour, and I incorporated his thoughts and ideas into the 21st century jobs plans.”

Now, a 30- to 60-minute meeting is not the same as developing and implementing the program, as the Granholm administration did.

Still, Mr. Dillon’s mini-revelation complicates the message Mr. Finney has been emphasizing and serves as a reminder that a top Snyder administration official (albeit one who will soon depart), Mr. Dillon, was instrumental in putting that program together.