Covington Commissioner James Toebbe addressed residents’ concerns at Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting. Speaking at the podium, he clarified questions about financing and tax incentive deals tied to MarfoFMA, an airline food manufacturer. The company is set to occupy the former White Castle processing facility on Rolling Hills Drive.
Toebbe’s comments came after the vote to approve both a municipal financing package and a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, deal with the company. You can read LINK nky’s previous reporting for more information on those deals, but Toebbe’s comments focused on several discrepancies in information related to the jobs slated to come to the facility.
Public records indicate that developers and officials have been coordinating to move the food company into the old distribution center, bringing an expected 98 full-time jobs, 78 of which are slated to be physically located in Covington and Kenton County. The 78 local jobs are expected to pay at least $34.61 per hour in wages, according to state records, yet the City of Covington put the average salary of the local jobs at about $56,000 annually.
The arithmetic for that doesn’t work out. Toebbe explained why.
“The hourly rate is part of the (state incentive), and that includes the benefits in it because the State of Kentucky is looking at the overall economic impact,” Toebbe explained. “Where the City of Covington, if you look to any of our (meeting) documents, it only references $56,000 a year, which is what the annual salary will be.”
The city, Toebbe explained, only taxes the actual salary, so any incentives given by the city would only account for the salary itself, benefits not included. He also clarified the discrepancy between the 98 jobs and 78 jobs.
“The plant is hiring 98 jobs, but the Kentucky incentive is only assuming that 78 of those 98 will live in the state of Kentucky, and only those employees will be eligible for that incentive,” Toebbe said.
Both the financing package and the tax incentive passed unanimously.