Do residents of the Twin Cities really need to maintain their partnership with the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council?

They do if they want a cost-effective way to continue to create local jobs.

City councils in the Twin Cities are in the dreaded and frequently exasperating municipal budget process, and councilors on both sides of the river are right to evaluate every tax dollar spent as they strive to maintain services. It’s a tough balance better achieved with a measured scalpel, though, not swiping with a scythe.

In Auburn, a number of councilors are hastily sharpening the scythe.

Before the mowing begins, let’s just look at what LAEGC does for the Twin Cities.

The fundamental mission of this decades-old agency is economic development, which means it assists investors through the financial and regulatory processes. It’s not a hand-holding service; it offers necessary expertise to find appropriate properties and navigate cumbersome red tape.

The agency — funded by a combination of public sources and private fees — also manages $14 million in assets, including its own revolving loan pool to help local investors bridge the financial gap between personal and private financing.

LAEGC helps establish businesses, plain and simple.

For instance, Patrick Leonard and Daniel Lajoie say they could not have purchased the original Auburn train station on High Street last year without the help of LAEGC.

The partners are renovating the property and hope to employ a dozen people in the near future. They will pay Auburn a hefty $8,092.49 in property taxes for that parcel in the current fiscal year, and are looking for other properties to purchase and renovate.

That’s just one example, but it’s pretty compelling proof that public funding of LAEGC is worthwhile. And, there’s more.

In the past two years, LAEGC also helped Micronetixx Communications establish a business in Lewiston, helped locate Baxter Brewing Co. in the former Bates Mill complex, steered business to Katahdin Studio Furniture and has been a strong lobbying force in local Maine Turnpike improvement projects and commercial rail development in Lewiston and Auburn. It also partnered with the Auburn Business Development Corp. to establish an 80-acre industrial park in Auburn, which is connected to a deal to extend the runway at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.

Does the LAEGC close every deal it works on? Of course not. But it closes an impressive number and maintains a tremendous network of paid and volunteer experts to assist with business development.

But, what really matters is the money.

In fiscal 2011, taxes paid by LAEGC-assisted companies in Auburn will be $7.14 million; in Lewiston, $11.38 million. Collectively, that’s $6.57 million more taxes paid in the Twin Cities than a decade ago by LAEGC-assisted companies, so it’s fair to say the agency is helping to produce more revenue for the cities than it charges for its services.

In terms of jobs, LAEGC-assisted companies employ 3,645 more people now than 10 years ago.

And, then, there’s the loan pool.

Six businesses in Auburn and 16 businesses in Lewiston collectively employing 183 people have active loans totaling $4.2 million, which is a tremendous investment by the LAEGC in the Twin Cities’ continued success.

There’s some suggestion in Auburn that what the LAEGC does can be done at Auburn Hall.

That’s certainly an option, but in-house work is not free.

The salary for Auburn’s in-house economic development director is entirely offset through TIF revenue, as is the salary for the community business specialist, the principal folks who work on economic development projects.

Offsetting additional employees with TIF revenue seems unlikely, and by dropping out of the LAEGC the city may be looking at hiring two additional positions, including salaries and benefits, to do the work being done by LAEGC. Could that be done for less than the city’s $167,487 share of LAEGC funding? Probably, but not much less.

But the most compelling reason for the cities to maintain their affiliations with the LAEGC is that their respective annual investments leverage millions of dollars in economic development — which translates into the creation of local jobs.

Isn’t that worth public investment?

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.