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City staff adopt ImPlan analytics tool to model local economic impacts
Summary
Garden City staff demonstrated ImPlan economic‑impact modeling and said the tool will speed analysis of prospects and help quantify county and city fiscal impacts, while cautioning about input assumptions and documentation gaps.
Shannon, director of analytics, demonstrated a new economic‑impact tool (ImPlan) the city has adopted to model employment, output, tax and induced effects of prospective projects for Finney County and Garden City.
In a 30‑minute presentation Shannon explained the tool can produce ZIP‑level trade‑area reports, sector demand figures and scenario analyses. She ran a hypothetical 300‑employee meat‑processing facility that the model estimated would generate about $170 million in output, roughly $20 million in direct labor, and a total employment impact (direct, indirect and induced) of about 473 jobs.
“Direct is that the output and the jobs created by that specific business we’re talking about. Indirect is the impacts when they buy goods or services from suppliers. Induced is when we look at all those employees from the direct and indirect, what’s the impact of everything else?” Shannon said while explaining the terms.
Why it matters: Staff said ImPlan will let economic development and the community college produce faster, consistent impact estimates to support recruitment, grant applications and local planning. They cautioned, however, that accuracy depends on correct underlying data and that some industry classifications will need local verification.
Shannon and other staff called out two caveats: (1) some ImPlan classifications rely on census or third‑party inputs that may undercount local population and need local scaling, and (2) the tool’s documentation does not always show the provenance of every industry number, creating the need for follow‑up with ImPlan’s data suppliers. She said the department has requested the program’s documentation and will validate key industry entries.
Shannon said a sample scenario — the hypothetical 300‑employee facility — yielded county tax revenue estimates of roughly $472,000 per year and predicted housing and hospital demand impacts. She suggested the tool will make it faster to test multiple scenarios and show partners projected tax and employment results.
Staff noted an apparent mismatch between how KDOT has used ImPlan in some highway‑impact presentations (measuring direct construction impacts rather than long‑run economic gains tied to improved freight movement). Shannon said the city will be cautious to specify what type of impact the tool models when used in applications or testimony.
Ending: The department plans to run further validation, request ImPlan’s underlying documentation for specific industry classifications, and use the tool to produce trade‑area reports and tax‑impact estimates for prospective projects.
