NM LEDA and JTIP: A Grant County Guide to the State's Two Core Business Incentives

New Mexico offers two core incentives that most manufacturers and export service companies use when they expand or relocate: the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) and the Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP). Both are administered by the New Mexico Economic Development Department (NM EDD). LEDA helps pay for the buildings, land, and public infrastructure a project needs. JTIP reimburses a large share of wages while your new employees are being trained. Used together, they lower the two biggest costs of standing up an operation in Grant County: capital and early payroll.

This guide explains how each program works, who qualifies, and how the application process runs. It reflects the programs as NM EDD administers them for fiscal year 2026. Because both programs change their policy manuals annually, treat this as an orientation and confirm current terms directly with NM EDD before you build a project budget around them.

The short version

LEDA is a capital tool. It reimburses eligible costs such as land, buildings, and public infrastructure for a qualifying company that is expanding or relocating. The funds flow through a local government that acts as the fiscal agent, so a LEDA project is always a partnership between the company, NM EDD, and a local government in Grant County.

JTIP is a workforce tool. It reimburses 50 to 90 percent of the wages of newly created, full-time jobs for up to 6 months while those workers are trained. The reimbursement rate is higher in rural areas, which works in Grant County’s favor.

LEDA: the Local Economic Development Act

What LEDA pays for

LEDA supports significant capital investment in permanent infrastructure. According to NM EDD, eligible and reimbursable costs can include the purchase, lease, construction, reconstruction, improvement, or other acquisition of land, buildings, and other infrastructure and public works improvements essential to a company locating or expanding in New Mexico. LEDA can also back loan guarantees for land, buildings, or infrastructure.

There is one boundary that trips up many first-time applicants: LEDA cannot pay for equipment. New Mexico’s constitution contains an anti-donation clause that prevents state money from flowing directly to a private business, so LEDA is structured around public infrastructure and assets rather than a company’s machinery. Plan your equipment financing through other means.

Which companies qualify

LEDA is aimed at economic base employers, meaning companies that bring new money into the state rather than recirculating local dollars. NM EDD describes qualifying entities as businesses that are one or a combination of the following: manufacturers, processors, or assemblers of agricultural or manufactured products; commercial enterprises that store, warehouse, distribute, or sell agricultural, mining, or manufactured products; and economic base employers that are eligible for the state’s Job Training Incentive Program. Retail businesses, public utilities, and services to the general public do not qualify.

NM EDD gives priority to projects that show significant community impact and support, that are located in rural or underserved areas of New Mexico, that raise wages and create jobs, that bring significant new capital investment, and that produce environmentally sustainable outcomes. Grant County’s rural status is an advantage in that scoring.

How a LEDA project comes together

A LEDA award is not a form a company files on its own. It runs through a local government partner that is prepared to act as fiscal agent, and that process generally follows these steps:

1. NM EDD reviews the company and project for eligibility.
2. The company provides a project scope of work, roughly three years of financials, its funding sources, and its job creation plan, and signs a release authorizing NM EDD to verify compliance with state and federal obligations.
3. The local government partner passes a project ordinance and agrees to serve as the fiscal agent that receives and disburses the funds and tracks the outstanding balance.
4. NM EDD develops a project terms sheet setting out security requirements and performance provisions, such as job and wage commitments the company must meet.
5. Final approval rests with the NM EDD Secretary and the Governor.

Because the local government is the fiscal agent, an early conversation with your municipality or with Grant County is essential. A community must have the legal framework in place, including an adopted LEDA ordinance, to participate. The Town of Silver City, for example, has used LEDA ordinances to formally adopt manufacturing projects as local economic development projects in the past.

JTIP: the Job Training Incentive Program

What JTIP does

JTIP funds classroom and on-the-job training for newly created jobs at expanding or relocating businesses for up to 6 months, and reimburses 50 to 90 percent of the trainees’ wages during that period. The reimbursement comes after training is completed, so a company fronts the wages and is repaid against the agreed schedule.

Why the rural rate matters in Grant County

The reimbursement percentage depends on where the jobs are located. Based on NM EDD’s program terms, the standard rates scale with community size: urban communities with a population above 60,000 receive 50 percent, rural communities under 60,000 receive 65 percent, and frontier or economically distressed communities and Native American communities under 15,000 receive 75 percent. A company can earn additional percentage points, up to a cap of 15 points above the standard rate, by combining qualifying conditions such as hiring recent New Mexico graduates, veterans, or former foster youth, or by meeting high-wage job tax credit criteria.

Silver City and the rest of Grant County fall in the rural tier, which means projects here start from a materially higher reimbursement rate than the same project would earn in Albuquerque or Las Cruces.

Which companies and jobs qualify

JTIP mirrors LEDA’s economic base focus. Eligible businesses are manufacturers and non-retail service companies that export at least 50 percent of their services to customers outside New Mexico, plus certain green industries. The company must be creating new jobs as a result of a startup, expansion, or relocation, and must be financially sound.

Eligible jobs must be newly created, full-time at a minimum of 32 hours per week, year-round, and directly tied to producing the product or delivering the service. Note that several industries are excluded from JTIP, including agriculture, construction, extractive industries, gambling, healthcare, and retail. That exclusion of extractive industries is worth flagging locally: mining is one of Grant County’s largest private employers, but a mining operation itself is not the target of JTIP. The program is designed to diversify the economic base around those anchor industries.

Who counts as an eligible trainee

Trainees must be new hires to the company and must have been residents of New Mexico for at least one year at some point in their lives before being hired. There is an exception for high-wage positions: a trainee hired into a qualifying high-wage role can meet a much shorter residency threshold. This structure rewards hiring locally while still allowing companies to recruit talent for their best-paid roles.

How to apply

JTIP begins with an eligibility questionnaire rather than a full application. A company completes the questionnaire, and a member of the JTIP staff at NM EDD follows up to determine eligibility and walk through the program in detail. NM EDD lists a JTIP contact line at (505) 827-0300. Because JTIP funding is approved by a board that meets on a schedule, timing your questionnaire well ahead of your planned hiring is important.

Using LEDA and JTIP together in Grant County

The two programs are designed to stack. A manufacturer relocating to Grant County might use LEDA, through a local government partner, to help cover the site and building improvements, and use JTIP to recover a large share of the wages it pays while training its first cohort of local hires. Because both programs target the same kind of economic base employer, a project that qualifies for one often qualifies for the other.

A practical sequence looks like this: confirm your project fits the economic base definition, open an early conversation with your Grant County or municipal partner about acting as LEDA fiscal agent, and file the JTIP eligibility questionnaire with NM EDD before you begin hiring. The Gila Economic Development Alliance can help you identify the right local government partner and connect you with the NM EDD program staff who administer each incentive.

Verify before you budget

Every program detail above is drawn from NM EDD’s published program materials for 2026. Both the LEDA and JTIP policy manuals are updated annually, and reimbursement rates, residency rules, and eligible industries can shift from year to year. Before you commit these incentives to a pro forma, confirm the current terms with NM EDD and with your local government partner. Getting the numbers right at the outset protects both your project and the credibility of the public partners standing behind it.