Issue 10 of 12
Growth pays for itself when the jobs come with it.
Delaware County holds 98,182 jobs, and they pay above the Ohio average. But over the last decade the county added businesses three times faster than it added jobs, 4 in 10 working residents still commute out every morning, and the tax base remains 90 percent residential. Houses fill classrooms; commerce fills the treasury. Ryan's approach: grow the jobs side of the ledger deliberately, and put the jobs-and-taxes math of every county deal in public before the vote.
See the decade in one chart ↓98,182
Jobs located in Delaware County in 2024, up 16.5 percent in a decade, paying an average $1,389 a week, above the Ohio average of $1,267.
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, 2024 annual averages42.9%
The share of working residents who commute out of the county, more than 50,000 people every workday. Their drive is the traffic page's morning rush.
U.S. Census ACS 2024 5-year, 2024 release50
Direct jobs Amazon committed for its $2 billion Sunbury data center investment, averaging $90,000, per the company's own agreement. Huge tax value, tiny payroll: the tradeoff in one number.
City of Sunbury data center FAQ, 2024The data
A decade of growth, measured honestly.
Every figure below is federal payroll data or the county's own financial report. No projections, no vibes.
Businesses vs jobs, 2015 to 2024
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, annual averages: 4,854 to 7,248 establishments (+49%), 84,274 to 98,182 jobs (+17%). The 2020 dip is the pandemic. Hover for any year's raw counts.
The ten biggest employers
One bank, two school districts, the county itself, and a mix of manufacturing, health care, and logistics. Diversity in employers is resilience in the tax base.
Where working residents actually work
And what the jobs here pay (avg weekly wage)
The out-commute is not about pay: local jobs pay competitively. It is about which jobs sit where, and every one that lands closer to home is a car off US 23 at 7:45 a.m.
Straight answers
What people ask at the door.
Are there actually jobs here?
Yes, and they pay well. Federal payroll data counts 98,182 jobs located in the county in 2024, nearly one for every working resident, paying an average of $1,389 a week, about 10 percent above the Ohio average and roughly even with Franklin County. JPMorgan Chase alone employs 12,400 people here, more than the next five employers combined. The county is not a jobs desert. The real questions are subtler: who fills those jobs, and whether the commercial tax base underneath them grows with the rooftops.
Why do so many people commute out?
Because a regional economy does not respect county lines. About 42.9 percent of working residents, more than 50,000 people, leave the county for work, mostly into Franklin County, while tens of thousands of workers stream in the other direction to fill jobs here. That interchange is normal for a suburban county, but it is not free: every out-commute is morning traffic on US 23 and I-71, and every job that lands closer to home takes a car off those roads at rush hour.
What does making growth pay for itself actually mean?
It is a tax-base statement. About 90 percent of the county's real property value is homes and farmland, and houses consume services, especially schools, faster than they fund them. Commercial and industrial value pays taxes without enrolling a single student. Growing that side of the ledger will not mechanically cut your current bill (state law rolls rates down as value grows), but it slows the pace of new levies and carries more of the cost of the county everyone shares. That is what the slogan means, with the fine print attached.
Are data centers the answer?
They are an answer, with honest arithmetic attached. In Sunbury, Amazon committed at least $2 billion in capital for about 50 direct jobs averaging $90,000, by the company's own filings. That is extraordinary tax value per acre and almost no payroll: the opposite shape from JPMorgan's 12,400 jobs. Neither shape is wrong. A county choosing between them deserves to see the jobs, payroll, and tax math of every deal in public before the vote, which is exactly why this campaign runs a public data center tracker.
What is the county already doing?
More than most people know. The Economic Development office recruits and retains employers with the standard Ohio toolkit (tax increment financing, reinvestment areas, enterprise zones), the county Finance Authority earned its first bond rating in May 2026, and the county bought land in a strategic growth corridor this summer. On the people side, the county's own Job and Family Services runs OhioMeansJobs Delaware County, and the career center trains the next workforce. The missing piece is not effort. It is public accounting of what each deal buys.
Where can I check this myself?
The jobs and wage figures come from the federal Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, downloadable for this county. The employer table is in the county's own annual financial report. The commute split is Census data. Sunbury publishes its Amazon documents in full, and the county Economic Development office posts its market reports. Every source is linked below, and the commissioners meet Monday and Thursday mornings at 9:30 at 91 North Sandusky Street.
Levers and limits
What a commissioner can actually do about jobs.
No county office creates a job by decree. What the board holds is the ground the jobs land on, and the deals that welcome them.
The board controls
The deals. Tax increment financing, reinvestment areas, and enterprise zones run through this board, alongside the county Finance Authority, which earned its first bond rating in May 2026. Every deal has a jobs number, a payroll number, and a tax number, and all three belong in the packet before the vote.
The ground. Employment sites need sewer, roads, and sometimes county land: the county bought acreage in a strategic growth corridor this summer. Infrastructure aimed at job corridors grows the tax base; infrastructure that only chases rooftops does not.
The workforce office. OhioMeansJobs Delaware County is run by the county's own Job and Family Services: training dollars, youth programs, and layoff response, all county-administered.
The megaphone. The county sits at the table with JobsOhio, One Columbus, and every city and township that lands a prospect. Convening the region's attention toward Delaware County sites is unglamorous and effective.
The board does not control
Where companies choose to go. Markets, labor, land prices, and sometimes a CEO's commute decide. The county can set the table. It cannot seat the guests.
Zoning for job sites. In 15 of the 18 townships, whether land can hold an office park or a plant is the township's call, and the cities zone their own corridors, including most of Polaris.
The state's deals. JobsOhio and the state cut the biggest incentive packages, like the ones that put Intel next door in Licking County rather than here. The county reacts to that board; it does not sit at it.
Wages and hiring. Employers set pay. The county's lever is supply: trained people, served sites, and a predictable process, which is what actually recruits employers over time.
The plan
What Ryan will do.
Publish the math on every deal.
Jobs promised, payroll promised, tax value created, and what the county gave up, stated in the packet before every incentive vote and reported against actuals every year after. Sunbury published its Amazon math in full. The county should never be outdone on transparency by a village.
Aim infrastructure at job corridors.
The 10-Year Growth Impact Forecast gets a jobs chapter: which corridors can carry employment growth, what sewer and road capacity they need, and what tax value they would add. Serving an employment site is the one way a county actually recruits an employer.
Connect county kids to county paychecks.
Back the career center's pipeline and the county's own OhioMeansJobs office so the students trained here can take the jobs here, from JPMorgan to the medic squad. A shorter commute for the next generation starts with a hiring pipeline that does not require one.
If nothing improves
The rooftops keep arriving on schedule, the jobs drift in at a third of the pace, and the tax base tilts further toward homes that fill classrooms faster than treasuries. More neighbors spend their mornings on US 23 heading somewhere else, and the levies arrive more often to cover what commerce is not here to carry. Nothing collapses. The math just keeps getting quietly worse.
What better looks like
A county where employment corridors get infrastructure on purpose, every incentive deal shows its arithmetic in public, and more of the people who live here also work here. The commute shortens, the commercial ledger carries a fairer share, and growth starts answering for itself with receipts instead of promises.
Sources
Last updated: September 2, 2026
You should not have to take a candidate's word for any of this. Every figure above traces to one of these sources. Found an error? Tell the campaign and we will fix it.
Keep going.
Jobs are the half of the growth ledger nobody photographs.