By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - mtrax@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon
HARPERSFIELD TOWNSHIP —
The ink on the new Job Creation Tax Credit was hardly dry, Geneva City Manager Jim Pearson said, when a possible 75 jobs were created with the stroke of a pen.
After weeks of whirlwind public meetings and voting on legislation, Geneva and Harpersfield Township officials signed the JCTC and accepted the first application for the program from HDT EP Inc., formerly Nordic Air. The Harpersfield Township business plans to hire 75 new full-time employees, with a payroll of more than $2 million, the company’s application to the program reveals.
The JCTC program is a refundable tax credit against a company’s income taxes, based on the amount of state income taxes withheld from new full-time employees. The program parameters in the Joint Economic Development District II agreement between the governments is “another tool to promote economic growth in our area,” Pearson said.
Business owners in the JEDD II area who create 10 new jobs or $200,000 in payroll now will receive a 50 percent tax credit on those wages for five years. An employer who creates 25 new jobs, or $500,000 in new payroll, will receive a 60 percent credit for seven years, and 50 new jobs, or $1 million in new payroll, can net an employer a 75 percent tax credit on those wages for 10 years, Pearson said.
The JCTC Program already has its “first customer,” Pearson said, in HDT EP Inc., which applied for the program on Friday, Pearson said.
Based on HDT EP Inc.’s forecast new payroll, the company will receive a 75 percent tax credit for 10 years. HDT EP Inc.’s Harpersfield Township location now employs 175 people.
Pearson said the two local JEDD agreements were some of the first in Ohio, and now JEDD II is the first JEDD in Ohio with a job-creation tax credit program.
“We have really been trend-setters in this state and that is all due to a tremendous amount of cooperation between our governments,” he said. “The key to our success has been communication and cooperation, even when it gets tough.”
Harpersfield Township Trustee Jim Pristov said the program will help keep the local JEDDs competitive and make the Geneva area even more appealing to businesses and manufacturers.
“This means significant job creation,” he said. “This is about growing our local economy and providing jobs for our citizens so they can afford to live in our community, send their children to our schools, buy at our local shops and stores, and maintain the quality of life we enjoy in this area. The first step is job creation, and I think this program is a huge step in the right direction.”
