Business View Magazine Jan-2019

198 “Our job is to help get companies the information they need: demographic, consumer spending, labor pool, average wage per job, etc.,”Lauerman adds. “We’ve got the ability to pull in and distribute a lot of information so that they have a one-stop-shop. With all of these types of industries, healthcare is also a staple in northwest Indiana and, in particular, Lake County.All sorts of medical services are avail- able to address the growing population pockets of the county. So,we’re using LCEA to be the clearing house for all of these leads, prospects, and general inquiries.” Finally, promoting and marketing Lake County is an ongoing operation,with Lauerman utilizing all available resources to talk about all of the advan- tages of doing business there, including the state’s AAA bond rating and a constitutional tax structure that caps residential property tax raises at one percent,multi-family residences at two percent, and commercial and industrial properties at three percent.“That means that our tax certainty is much better than many of our neighbors and other states throughout the country,” she avers.“So,when you talk about the cost of doing business, that helps provide a level of confidence that there’s not going to be a tax hike tomorrow.The other thing that we