There is one group of people who hope Washington state lawmakers will raise taxes on business: The people of Cedar Park, Texas. In effect, their message is, “If you don’t want your employers, we’ll take ‘em!”

The sentiment is no idle boast. In fact, the Cedar Park Development Corporation is offering a $5 million bounty to Washington employers who move to their town.

Consider the letter received last month by Bill Williams, owner of Telect, located just east of Spokane:

“Cedar Park, Texas is a great place to live, work and play. As of today, it’s also lucrative. And it’s easy. If you locate your business in Cedar Park, your company could qualify for up to five million dollars.”

Cedar Park is not out on the west Texas prairie. It’s just 20 miles from Austin, one of America’s most livable cities, and home to the University of Texas.

Williams started Telect from scratch in 1982 with his wife, Judy, and son, Wayne. The company, which develops and produces fiber optic connectors and power panels, grew quickly with the telecom and dot.com revolution in the 1990s. To keep up with worldwide demand and to better serve their international customers, the Williams family expanded their plant at Liberty Lake and built manufacturing facilities in Poland, England, and Mexico.

Then the bottom dropped out. As Williams wrote in a letter to Governor Locke and lawmakers in Olympia, “I can tell you that in the past 27 months we have had to reduce our workforce by approximately 1,800 employees. I simply cannot tell you how agonizing this has been to all of us.”

Today, the bottom line for the Williams family is keeping their business alive and keeping their remaining 565 workers on the job. But that’s not a sure thing.

Williams is already paying higher costs for unemployment insurance, workers’ comp, health care benefits, and liability insurance. He has watched his other costs go up with Washington’s unique automatic yearly increases in the minimum wage. That’s why Williams and thousands of other employers in Washington are pressing legislators to look at the cumulative impact of cost increases during these recessionary times. The backbreaker would be if lawmakers impose additional taxes on employers to balance the state budget as they did in 1993.

The Williams family is deeply rooted in Spokane. They want to stay and grow Telect in Washington, but the question for our elected officials is, “Can they?” Will employers like Telect get much-needed relief from government-imposed taxes and fees, or will they be targeted for tax increases?

Enclosed in the letter from Cedar Park, Texas was a check for $5,000,000 payable to Telect if the company moves to Cedar Park, Texas. While that check wasn’t real, the offer is. It’s quite a contrast. In Washington, overtaxed and over regulated employers may be targeted for even higher taxes and fees to close the $2.6 billion state revenue shortfall, while Texas is offering them $5 million to move there.

Will Telect stay in Washington or move to Texas? Only state legislators can answer that question.