Guilford County has been handing out a lot of monetary incentives to businesses in recent years and now a new $1.9 million incentives package has started down the road for approval.
On Monday, Jan. 6, Guilford County issued notice of a public hearing at the next commissioners meeting to receive citizen input on a $1.9 million “economic development grant” for Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC – for employee retention and also in exchange for $68 million in capital investment by the company.
The announcement came just hours after the City of Greensboro announced that it will consider a $1.7 million incentives package also meant to retain those employees at a special meeting on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 4 p.m. in the Council Chamber.
According to information provided by Guilford County, the jobs being retained have an average wage of $107,000.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has used incentives many times in the past to lure new businesses to Guilford County, but, in 2019, the commissioners began down a new path: offering taxpayer money to companies in large part just to get them to stay. For instance, Guilford County – like the cities of Greensboro and High Point – approved an incentives package for the upscale grocer Fresh Market that was in large part meant to retain that company’s headquarters and corporate leadership jobs.
One can only hope that the county won’t have to start paying every business in Guilford County to stay here since that could get quite expensive.
Any concerns or arguments in favor of offering the incentives to Syngenta can be expressed by citizens in the commissioners meeting room on the second floor of the Old Guilford County Court House in downtown Greensboro at the board’s Thursday, January 16 meeting.
Recently, Guilford County Commissioner Alan Branson told the Rhino Times that he and other board members do not like using incentives for job retention one bit, but, he added, many in the community had been greatly upset by Guilford County’s loss of corporate headquarters in recent years such as the departure of VF Corp. two years ago.
Hey, it’s not your money. Give it to a company who extorts money from the taxpayer (in favor of other companies who do not get handouts from the govt) with threats.
So VF left, so Syngenta wants a bribe. Taxpayers will create their own jobs be spending their money with merchants who meet their needs as they see fit. The merchants that give people what they want (sales 101) will prosper and hire more people. That always works.
I’d like to remind the County Commissioners that our County Retiree Health Insurance cost went up to $720/year but the amount we get in retirement benefits didn’t go up. Any incentive paid to retain companies comes out of the tax money we pay. Incentives to retain private companies is clearly a bribe. Every time they pay private business incentives they encourage others to demand them. Instead of paying these bribes and funding other non-mandated projects how about paying benefits for your employees and retirees.
How bout a finance incentive for the taxpayers of guilford county to stay here ?
A total of $3.6 Million in exchange for an investment of $68 million is not a bad trade. While I abhor economic incentives such as this, it is the current business practice across the country. Can Syngenta indicate the number of employees that would be displaced and how many new jobs will be created with the new investment? How much money will the new jobs generate for Greensboro and the County each year? Lets get the entire story before making such an important decision.
Giving in to corporate extortion only results in more of the same. Conservatives ran against this sort of thing but now are going along. Sad.
I found this on line. Syngenta Faces Dozens of Lawsuits over GMO Seed.
I suggest Greensboro, gets it together on what we are feeding our money into.
This is to Bill : I don’t like the fact that conservatives do not toe the line completely on their principles they ran on ,but I love the fact that I have not had a county tax increase since the conservatives have been in charge!!!!!!! If those Dems had been in charge we would be getting a tax increase each and EVERY year.Thanks for our conservatives….Let’s vote out all Dems local and on state level,especially this governor who is telling the sheep it to cooperate with Ice on retainers/ and more.He vetoed one of our last annual budgets which would have given teachers a nice raise.