Camso may be receiving a 10-year tax abatement for an ongoing expansion project if Emporia City Commissioners approved a recommendation from the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas.
During the RDA Board of Directors meeting Friday morning, board members voted unanimously to recommend the city permit a 10-year 100 percent abatement for Camso as it continues a $6.3 million project to expand its offices and bring in new equipment. In addition to the physical expansion, the project will also see the company add 26 employees and expand payroll by $1.3 million.
RDA President Kent Heerman believes it may be challenging, not to find the workforce but to retain it.
An end date for the project has yet to be announced, however, Heerman anticipates the expansion may be completed by sometime this Fall.
In other business, the board approved the awarding of a contract to the Next Move Group an executive search firm based in St. Louis and New Orleans. While not centered in Kansas, RDA Board Chair Jon Geitz says the company has extensive experience with conducting searches in the state, in fact, Next Move Group is a preferred partner of Evergy.
As such, Evergy has stated it will cover half the cost of the RDA’s contract with Next Move Group of $21,000. Geitz says Evergy’s involvement makes sense as the work of the RDA has an impact on Evergy’s local operations.
The RDA presidential search committee is planning to meet with representatives of Next Move Group in the “next few weeks” to develop a timeline for the search process.
The RDA Board will reconvene for its monthly meeting in September at the Trusler Business Center.
