Sooner is better than later for clawing back incentive.

• Position: Triad

What a difference nine months can make. For Winston-Salem, Forsyth County and two local economic-development agencies, it comes to nearly $13.3 million. That's the gap between what they collected this year from Dell Inc., which is closing its local computer-assembly plant next month, and what they would have gotten had it stayed open until next October. Because the plant will shut down before its fifth anniversary--consumers prefer laptop computers to...