Commission Votes To Recommend Louis Dreyfus Tax Abatements Be Approved By Council
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Jackie Gorski-
Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission approved Thursday recommending to the County Council that tax abatements for Louis Dreyfus be approved.
Investments made by Louis Dreyfus include real estate improvements of $18,272,000 and personal investments of $12.71 million, including additional manufacturing equipment, information technology equipment and logistics equipment, said Steve Snyder, attorney for Louis Dreyfus, Claypool.
Snyder said the construction is under way and will be concluded by Dec. 31, 2022.
The abatements would be for 10 years on the real estate and five years on the personal property.
The Louis Dreyfus facility is located in a Tax Incremental Finance district, Snyder said.
“And any time we’re requesting a tax abatement in a TIF district, we need Redevelopment Commission approval by statute,” he said.
For the purposes of the abatement, there are 122 employees with salaries of $11,744,295. All of those employees will be retained and an additional 11 employees will be retained with benefits and salaries of $926,431.
The purpose of the project is an expansion of what Drefus does best, Snyder said, which is diversification.
“We’re dealing with very high-paying positions,” Snyder said. The lowest paying position would be at $77,387 and the highest-paying position is $115,000.
Snyder said these are significant job additions.
This will allow for some diversification into areas that weren’t anticipated before several years ago, Snyder said.
He said the abatements will go in front of the Kosciusko County Council next week.
Jeremy Mullins, nonvoting member of the Commission and an employee of Louis Dreyfus, said it could bring in money for the school corporations.
Mullins, who also serves on the Warsaw School Board, said he’s heard the argument that the abatement will take away money from the schools. However, he thinks it will bring money to the schools because it helps bring people to the area.
The people that can be attracted to the jobs Louis Dreyfus is looking to add can possibly come from outside the area and bring children or grandchildren if they have them. If not, they could be like Mullins and have children after moving to the area and make roots in the area.
The amount it impacts the schools on some of this is very minimal, Mullins said, but the benefits are much higher because of the children coming into the community, as the money for schools follows the children.
Not all the children will go to schools in the county, but most will, whether that is a school corporation like Warsaw Community Schools or Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation, Mullins said.
