By Howard Packowitz
NORMAL – The vice chairman of the McLean County Board is trying to counter skepticism about property tax breaks offered to Canada’s Brandt Industries to build a manufacturing plant between Normal and Hudson.
The Normal Township Board of Trustees delayed until Wednesday a vote on the tax abatements for Brandt.
Township Supervisor Sarah Grammer said she would feel much better about the deal if there had been a so-called claw-back clause, in which Brandt would promise to return money to taxpayers if the company left the community after the decade-long agreement expires.
Speaking with WJBC’s Sam Wood, Republican County Board member Jim Soeldner of Ellsworth said a claw-back provision might cost taxpayers in the long-run with legal fees because the company, if it decided to leave, might go to court to contest paying the money to the taxing bodies.
Soeldner favors a series of milestones, in which Brandt agrees to create a certain number of jobs to be eligible for the incentives.
“We’ve tried claw-backs before and we found that we preferred bench marks,” Soeldner explained. “In a claw-back, granted if it’s an agreement that they’re going to repay something, it still takes some litigation. If they’re leaving to the point ‘well, we don’t care’ – if it means litigation it’s going to cost money.”
Brandt pledges to hire at least 50 full-time workers during the first year of the agreement and at least three-hundred by the seventh year.
Soeldner said a negative vote from the Township Board is unlikely to kill the deal because the largest taxing bodies, Unit 5 and the McLean County Board, are in favor of the agreement.
Howard Packowitz can be reached at howard.packowitz@cumulus.com.
