Get the biggest bang for the buck. When the region’s top IDA officials talk about the main goal of their new tiered incentive program, they almost always use those exact words.

By offering more lucrative tax breaks to projects that are expected to have a greater economic impact, the new policy allows the region’s economic development officials to target the most valuable incentives at developments that will pack the biggest punch.

“We can match incentives to those projects that can give us the biggest bang for the buck,” says James J. Allen, the executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency.

See what I mean?

IDA officials have come up with a new scorecard to rank projects. Companies get points for being in a brownfield site or a targeted development area, like an Empire Zone or a federal renewal community. They get points for being in one of the region’s six targeted industries, from advanced manufacturing and back office, to agriculture, life sciences, tourism and distribution.

There’s a scale that grants points based on the number of jobs created, which varies by industry, as well as how much of a company’s sales go outside the region (more is better because it creates wealth here), and how much it buys from other Erie County businesses. Companies also get points for building green buildings.

Companies scoring the fewest points will qualify for seven years of property tax breaks, down from 10 or 15 years under the current policy. But those tax breaks, while compressed, are more lucrative, never requiring companies to pay more than 30 percent of their total tax burden in a single year.

Score a mid-level amount of points, and a company qualifies for 10 years of tax breaks. Score at the highest level and companies can get a 100 percent break on their taxes for seven years, and then pay based on a scale that rises by 10 percent a year during each of the final three years of the agreement.

When you consider that money loses value over time because of inflation, the present value of those shorter, more lucrative tax breaks is about the same as the longer, but less valuable incentives available today, says David Mingoia, the Amherst IDA’s executive director.

“This is exactly right. It’s smart. It’s clear. It’s strategic,” says Kathryn Foster, the director of the University at Buffalo Regional Institute. “It says ‘This is what we want and, if you bring us what we want, we will reward you.’ ”

The new policy is a big step in the right direction. But there’s still room for improvement.

For starters, the new policy is too focused on how many jobs are created and doesn’t give enough credit to companies creating good-paying jobs. A manufacturer, for instance, can score one point for every 25 jobs created. That’s five points for a project with 125 jobs. But in a separate category, companies in any industry can get only one point if the average pay of those jobs is more than the region’s median income of almost $32,000.

That’s backwards. Fifty new jobs that pay $50,000 a year pack a bigger economic punch than 100 jobs paying $20,000, yet the company creating more low-paying jobs would score higher in the “job creation” and “wage” categories combined. Foster notes that the state Labor Department forecasts that most of our job growth over the next six years will come from lower-paying positions. The incentive policy should be geared to reverse that.

And now that the local IDAs are extending their cooperation beyond a common eligibility policy to the tiered incentives, it makes less sense than ever for there to be six IDAs in Erie County.

“It’s high time to put the idea of a single IDA back on the table,” Foster says. “The strongest argument for the continued fragmentation is a political one.”