Commissioners approve tax abatement for paper mill

The Cass County Commissioners’ Court convened in a special session Wednesday, Dec. 30, to approve an economic development agreement for tax abatement with Graphic Packaging International, LLC (GPI) after more than two years of negotiations.

GPI has agreed to modernize and improve its facility in Cass County to increase capacity and reduce its environmental impact by creating a “state-of-the-art solid bleached sulfate (SBS) facility with increased capacity.”

The total estimated cost of improvements to the property is $174 million.

The county has agreed to a 100 percent ad valorem tax abatement for a term of 10 years with stipulations in place that ensure compliance. These include a base number of full-time employees and access granted to county employees for the purpose of inspecting the project’s progress.

GPI will pay a “PILOT” payment in lieu of ad valorem taxes in the amount of $321,500 every year for the term of the contract--$3.215 million over a 10-year period.

In addition to the PILOT payments, administrative costs of $5,000 per year are due and payable to the county on or before Mar. 31 of each year.

According to the Cass County Appraisal District, the county’s levy on all property held by GPI is more than $1.4 million for 2020.

Texarkana attorney David Glass presented the court with an overview of the agreement and the importance of keeping GPI and its investment dollars in Cass County as well as retaining the employment it offers the area.

“This document is the culmination of approximately two years of work by this court with Graphics Pack aging in an effort to not only keep them in Cass County but to get them committed to making improvements in Cass County”, Glass said.

“Without this agreement, GPI could commit to making the improvements within the county and the county could offer them tax abatement, but they could pull the plug on it at any time”, Glass continued, “The benefit to getting them to sign this agreement is, now they’re locked in so if they pull the plug and decide to go to Monroe and make the improvements, the county is still going to get roughly $3.2 million over the next 10 years.”

According to Glass, GPI expressed early in the negotiation process that Cass County was one of many to which they were considering devoting its resources.

Judge Becky Wilbanks motioned the court that the agreement be approved and signed by all members of the Commissioners’ Court.

“I am very pleased that we’re finally signing this and moving forward. I think this is something that will be very good for the county and Graphic Packaging”, Wilbanks said.

The economic development agreement was approved unanimously and signed by Judge Wilbanks and Commissioners Brett Fitts, Paul Cothren, Danny Shaddix and Darrell Godwin.