From the Anderson Herald-Bulletin:
Abatements can have an impact on a government’s ability to immediately collect taxes since payments are typically phased in for a company that promises to add jobs or expand. But abatements are generally good business to communities like Anderson.
Most recently, Nestlé, the single largest source for tax revenue in the city, asked for a $14 million abatement while pledging to invest $166 million in production and create another 104 jobs. The Anderson City Council should give strong and favorable consideration to the request.
It is a commitment that may likely bring more workers from throughout central Indiana to the plant every week.
The request for the abatement also hinges on whether Nestlé’s world HQ in Switzerland wants to expand here or somewhere else.
Few in Anderson could speak to a corporate decision being made half-a-world away.
The company has already invested $582 million in Anderson, producing 3 million to 4 million bottles a day of Coffee-mate, Nesquik and BOOST. It employs 663, up from the 300 jobs promised when the company opened. But about 50 percent of those workers are from Madison County; the other half come from outside the county. And it is often that distant working relationship that seems to affect Nestlé’s presence throughout the city. It is rare — if ever — to see Nestlé advertise in an Anderson Symphony Orchestra program or an Anderson’s Mainstage Theatre playbill.
And most of Anderson understands this; that this is a worldwide corporation that can’t focus on the needs of a city in Indiana with a population of 56,000. If it can get a bunny to a classroom once or twice a year, then, maybe, that’s enough.
But it’s also a production plant that relies on the kindness of its neighboring city to provide tax breaks.
Nestlé is a promising facility that impacts the world and could well grow at its present location.
But maybe Anderson could feel like it’s growing with it.
http://heraldbulletin.com/editorials/x946186974/Editorial-Nestl-deserves-abatement-but-Anderson-may-deserve-more
