The Clawback Conversation: What Happens After the Ribbon Cutting

It’s month eighteen. The ribbon-cutting photo is still on your office wall, but the compliance report just landed in your inbox—and the company you fought so hard to win is miles short of its job targets. Now what?

This week on Site Selectors Are People, Too, Devin tackles the hardest conversation in economic development: the clawback. When a project goes sideways after the giant scissors are put away, EDOs are often left holding two conflicting promises—one to the company, and one to the taxpayers.

Using the composite story of Marston County and "Halvern Components," Devin breaks down the reality of post-announcement project management, exploring why missed targets are rarely villainy and usually just the realities of delayed switchgear or shifting labor markets.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Four Doors of Clawbacks: Why enforcing an agreement isn't just a binary switch (Enforce, Pause, Renegotiate, or Wait) and what each door costs you.
• The Three Questions: How to confidently choose your path and explain it to your board (Delay or downsize? Did they call first? Was it in their control?).
• The Nerd Section: The 6 anatomical parts of every performance agreement, the math behind pro-rata recapture, and why "threshold bands" save relationships.
• The Post-Ribbon Playbook: 7 structural lifelines you need in every deal before the ink dries, and how to build a Project Announcement Compliance Calendar so nobody drops the ball.

Write the clawback like you’ll have to use it. Write the relationship like you’ll never have to.