Some days, it’s good to be the governor. Like Tuesday, when Gov. John Baldacci arrived in Farmington to announce the occupation of the town’s vacant MBNA building by a medical company, NotifyMD, which promises to create more than 100 jobs, thanks to the magic of “economic development.”

What is economic development anyway? Lately in Maine, it is whatever new company, old company, gaudily named initiative or commission, homespun incentive program, or nebulous phraseologythat the governor ribbon-cuts.

Here’s the uncomfortable answer: Nobody has bothered to define it for years.

The lack of a clear definition for economic development is one of the sobering findings released this week by the state’s Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability. Its 78-page analysis of Maine’s scattershot economic development history reveals an inefficient, over-administered and unwieldy programmatic landscape lacking goals, oversight and effectiveness.

It’s nothing new. OPEGA’s report contains information dating back to 1987 – when the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development was created – that cites the state’s inability to define an economic development strategy. Except now, economic development programs invested more than $602 million, in disbursements and tax credits from 2003 to 2005 alone, the report found.

That’s a fair amount of taxpayer funds being disbursed or forfeited without coherent accountability or oversight. And there could be more. The disjointed administration of Maine’s economic development has created gaping crevasses where dollars can disappear.

In a background analysis related to the Brookings Institution report on Maine, the state’s economic development foundation is described as fissured, with five federal agencies, at least seven state agencies, 11 regional agencies, 43 local governments, 67 chambers of commerce, and dozens of other nonprofit and private entities all ostensibly working toward the same goal.

Except a stated goal – as defined by the state – doesn’t exist. OPEGA found 20 percent of the economic programs it reviewed lack a “clearly stated public purpose,” while one-third fail to report their performance in a method that allows for realistic legislative or public oversight.

It should concern Lewiston-Auburn, as well, that the ballyhooed “creative economy” cheered by the governor and others – with the Bates Mill lauded as this economy’s centrifuge – is given short shrift in this charitable funding environment for economic development.

The governor’s Creative Economy Advisory Council is devoid of funding, according to the Brookings background analysis. Like economic development, “creative economy” is a term sorely needing a clear definition.

OPEGA’s analysis has pulled back the curtain on Maine’s economic development to reveal its convoluted inner mechanisms, one in which most economic development programs have trouble evaluating their efficacy, calculating their administration expenses, or collecting basic data.

Tuesday, the system worked for Farmington. A systemic reform of economic development in Maine, however, should ensure there are more ribbon-cuttings, and good days, for the governor ahead.