SEYMOUR — Cummins received more than $9 million in tax abatements for improvements to its local operations Monday night during a Seymour City Council meeting at city hall.
Jim Plump, executive director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., spoke on behalf of Cummins, which was requesting three abatements — two for projects involving the purchase and installation of personal property and the third for real estate improvements on Seymour’s east side.
A tax abatement occurs over a 10-year period in which companies pay 10% more on taxes each consecutive year. Companies do not pay any property taxes on the improvements in the first year of a tax abatement.
The two personal property tax abatement requests that were submitted involved projects at the Seymour Technical Center at 800 E. Third St. Those projects will include machinery, test cells and facilities and manufacturing equipment for Project GZ04, but no new jobs.
The real estate improvement tax abatement that was requested is for the renovation of the campus, expansion and facility improvements. That request was tabled until the next city council meeting on April 10 due to a clerical error on the designating body section of the statement of benefits paperwork.
According to the statement of benefits submitted by the company, Cummins payroll for its 954 employees in Seymour is $78,070,300. All current positions are to be retained.
The estimated project start date for the personal property projects is May 15 and will likely be completed Dec. 31.
The total investment of these projects is $9.2 million with $8.6 million of that investment going to the personal property projects and $600,000 going to the real estate project. Cummins plans to put $2.6 million toward the personal property projects regarding Project GZ04 and $5.9 million toward new machinery.
The projected start date for the real estate project, also to be at 800 E. Third St., will be May 20 and its completion date also is Dec. 31.
On Tuesday, Plump said the mistake on the real estate statement of benefits was that morning, and he plans to speak again on behalf of Cummins at the April 10 council meeting to request approval of the tax abatement.
