CITY OFFICIALS ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT VALMONT

  

The tax abatements for Valmont Industries recently approved by the City of Brenham and by Washington County have brought up many questions, considering last year's layoffs by the company.  Brenham City Manager Terry Roberts and Paige Michel, President and CEO of the Brenham Economic Development Foundation, answered some of those questions for KWHI.

Roberts and Michel explained that there are three separate divisions of Valmont.  The original division that located in Brenham is the Valmont Structures division, which manufactures large utility poles.  The division that opened here in 2011, and mostly employed welders, was Valmont Utilities.  That division closed last year, laying off 160 workers.  The third division is Valmont Coatings, which recently received the tax abatements for their plans to locate in Brenham.  Michel says that division will start up with 40 employees in year one making an average salary between about $29,000 and $35,000.  They plan to grow to over 100 employees over the next few years.  Valmont Coatings is the division that was granted a tax abatement last year, but then changed their plans due to the downturn in the economy.

The original Brenham division, Valmont Structures, currently employs about 223 people.

Roberts says the City views each of the Valmont divisions as separate companies when they apply for tax abatements.  He says last year's closure of the Utilities division had no effect on the granting of abatements for the Coatings division this year.  However, Roberts did say that the City is looking back to see if the Utilities division met the obligations of its own tax abatement before closing last year.