Utah may gain another tool to lure new businesses and jobs if an economic incentives bill continues on course through the state Legislature.

HB11, an economic development incentives bill sponsored by Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, was passed unanimously by the House Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Standing Committee Wednesday and is on its way to the House floor for wider debate.

The bill seeks to provide broader tax incentives for job-creating companies through the creation of "economic development zones," similar to aerospace and aviation development zones that have been created near airports. Local entities would establish the economic development zones, and companies would apply through the state's Department of Community and Economic Development.

According to HB11, the qualification criteria includes projects that will offer "significant capital investment, the creation of high-paying jobs, or significant purchases from Utah vendors and providers, or any combination of these three economic factors."

The economic development department would determine the "structure and amount of any partial rebates," as well as the economic impact and job creation standard necessary to qualify for the incentive.

"I think we've reached the point where we have economic development in one of its finest forms here, the fact that we have inducements that are not related to inducements from property taxes, or inducements that would be given to a particular enterprise before they perform what they committed to do," Dee told the committee Wednesday.

HB11 provides that companies receive their rebates "only after the jobs are created, only after an audit has been performed that shows that these jobs are indeed here and are high-paying jobs, above the median pay rate, and producing what the company said it would produce for us," he said. "It creates incentives through job creation, not through retail sales or RDA (redevelopment) inducements."

Stan Lockhart, chairman of the Utah Technology Industry Council, said both the council and the Utah Technology Commission support the bill.

"If truly what a state wants to do is find ways to increase its citizens' ability to get high-paying jobs, then there's a dichotomy in that our local, city governments don't have those same incentives in place," Lockhart said. "The state goes through great lengths to provide various incentives, both tax-related and in other ways. And yet when you get down to the city level, there's really nothing there, and they have no reason to cooperate and be part of that discussion."

HB11 better aligns local and state government economic development efforts, Lockhart said.

In her motion to pass the bill from the committee favorably, Rep. Peggy Wallace, R-West Jordan, called HB11 "a giant leap forward" in Utah's economic development.

"This puts us in a position where we have all entities in the state working together, finally, at last," Wallace said.

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