RICHMOND, Ind. — Richmond Common Council will consider six tax abatement requests from a Richmond company.
Vandor Corporation and its parent company, Elder Family Partners, filed the six requests that indicate an overall planned investment of $6.4 million and creation of 28 new jobs with minimum hourly wages of $16. The abatements would reduce tax payments on the investments through 10 years for manufacturing equipment and five years for IT equipment.
The ordinances were read to council members during Monday night's meeting, and all six requests were referred to council's tax abatement committee. The committee will vet the applications and provide council members with additional information at a future meeting.
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Council member Ron Oler told his fellow council members that the tax abatement requests were broken into so many ordinances because Vandor operates at multiple Richmond locations.
Vandor was founded in 1972 to build caskets and interior components, according to its website, vandercorp.com. In addition to its funeral products division, Vandor also has a Reel Options division that produces reels for items such as wire, cable and fiber optics and a Plastics Division that specializes in single- and multi-shot injection molding.
The company has major production facilities at 4251 W. Industries Road and 1620 Rich Road.
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One abatement application indicates Vandor plans a $1.8 million investment in a 17,750-square-foot addition for its Rich Road facility. Three of the other five requests involve manufacturing equipment with investments of $2.5 million, $1 million and $1 million, and the other two requests cover IT equipment, each with a $50,000 investment.
Council authorized Richmond Municipal Airport to pursue grant funding from the Federal Aviation Administration's Airport Improvement Program.
The airport will use grant funds up to $300,000 to acquire snow-removal equipment. The grant requires a 10% match that would be split between the state and money already allocated in the airport's 2022 budget. The state and airport would each contribute $16,666.
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With the grant application due April 11, the bidding process for the equipment has already begun. Bids were scheduled to be opened during Tuesday's Board of Aviation meeting. When the equipment cost is finalized, the ordinance approved Monday night will be amended to reflect that cost.
Council also received the city-county interlocal agreement for the Emergency Communications Center. That agreement was referred to council's finance committee.
The city's 2022 share of running the ECC, which dispatches emergency calls, is $528,837.11. That is half the salary and benefits costs for some ECC personnel.
Money received from 911 surcharges paid by cellphone customers pays salaries and benefits for a director, deputy director, one shift supervisor, five full-time communications specialists and one part-time communications specialist. It also partially pays for an IT specialist and an office coordinator.
During 2021, the ECC received 42,843 calls and 277 texts messages to 911, with 98.8% of the 911 calls answered within 10 seconds, according to statistics previously supplied to the Wayne County commissioners. There also were 46,876 administrative calls received on non-emergency lines.
The ECC dispatched 81,341 total calls for service in Wayne County, including 59,438 for law enforcement and 15,609 for fire and EMS.