IW cuts Green Mountain incentives

Published 6:58 pm Saturday, June 24, 2017

Isle of Wight County has adjusted the incentives it offered to Keurig Green Mountain Inc. to locate a packaging facility in the Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park in Windsor.

The county’s Board of Supervisors approved an amendment to the 2012 performance agreement with KGM in its June 15 meeting. The agreement provided KGM with certain incentives through the Economic Development Incentive Grant program through Dec. 31, 2021.

KGM had pledged to create capital investment in the amount of $180,000,000 by Dec. 31, 2016. Supervisors said KGM had invested $144 million in new capital investment by that date, or 80 percent of the original pledged amount.

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The amendment stipulates that the county will continue to provide incentive payments through 2021, but at 80 percent of the original agreement.

Isle of Wight Assistant County Administrator Donald Robertson said this amendment was an agreed adjustment between the county and KGM to reflect the actual business of the past several years, rather than the 2012 projections.

“This was not some punitive action that the board took,” he said. “This was really Green Mountain coming to us, and the whole discussion has been extremely cooperative. We’re really impressed with what the company has been able to do in light of the economy in the past few years.”

The county originally agreed to reduce the machinery and tools tax rate for the company from the 2012 rate of 95 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 70 cents. Rebates were also offered that effectively could have lowered that rate to 21 cents per $100 through 2021.

The amendment reduces some of the machinery and tools tax rebates by 20 percent.

It also also reduces an annual rebate of 70 percent of any increase in real estate taxes the company pays each year through 2021 to 56 percent.

KGM also pledged to create 800 new full-time jobs for its Windsor facility by the termination date, receiving an Enterprise Zone job grant of $500 for each new full-time position, according to the 2012 agreement. The actual number of jobs created was 550, amounting to $275,000 for KGM.

“While we don’t comment on financials, we’re proud to be a member of the Windsor business community and look forward to continued work with the Isle of Wight County,” Kristen Mercure, a spokeswoman for Keurig Green Mountain, stated in an emailed response to questions.