ServiceMaster
UPDATE: In documents released from the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE), ServiceMaster says it will directly employ 965 at the new Downtown headquarters, not 1,200 as touted by the company and government officials last week.
ServiceMaster wants a $2.3 million grant from EDGE and a 15-year tax break on its personal property that will save the company $843,831 for a total incentive of more than $3.1 million. The EDGE board is slated to vote on the matter next week.
In the application for the funds, EDGE noted that the direct employment figure – the total amount ServiceMaster will employ – is 965. However, EDGE lists the total indirect employment figure at 1,315 but the documents does not explain the additional jobs.
The indirect employment figure could be contractors, of course, but the 1,315 figure is not the same as the one outlined by ServiceMaster or the Downtown Memphis Commission in a different application. (See below.)
Nora Boone, a spokeswoman for EDGE, said ServiceMaster asked for their Peabody Place project to be evaluated only on the 965 jobs, the company’s full-time employees.
The remainder of the 1,315 jobs could be contract or temporary workers but Boone said she was not sure.
ORIGINAL POST:
ServiceMaster’s planned move to Downtown Memphis might bring fewer jobs than first advertised.
Amidst the celebration of last week’s announcement that the Memphis company plans to move its headquarters to the vacant Peabody Place in Downtown Memphis, company and government officials repeated over and again that the move would bring 1,200 jobs with it.
In a news release issued at the time, the company said the move will bring “approximately 1,200 people to the renovated building by the end of 2017.”
But in some government documents, that figure appears lower.
Next week, the Center City Development Corp. (CCDC) could vote to give the company $1 million. In the application for that grant, Downtown Memphis Commission staffers say the move will bring “approximately 1,000 employees and contractors” to the space.
In its part of the application to the CCDC, ServiceMaster says the move would bring “employees and contractors in excess of 1,000 to be relocated to downtown headquarters.” It does not give a precise figure on total employees and even the approximate figure is 1,000, not 1,200.
Center City Development Corp.
Two, separate lines from ServiceMaster’s CCDC grant application show the 1,000 employee figure, not 1,200.
It’s a difference of more than 16 percent and, of course, 200 jobs. It may seem small, but it becomes important as the company likely used the jobs figure to convince government leaders to invest millions of taxpayer dollars in the company’s move.
The discrepancy in the figures could be a reporting error on the company’s application or just some generous rounding. ServiceMaster has not yet responded to an inquiry about the discrepancy in the jobs figure.
DMC spokeswoman Leslie Gower said in an email Friday that she believed the “additional number represents contract workers.” However, language in the grant application is specific to about 1,000 employees and contractors.
ServiceMaster made a profit of $39 million in the first three months of this year, according to the company’s first-quarter earnings statement, and it pays its CEO, Robert Gillette, about $2.3 million annually in total compensation, according to his corporate profile at Bloomberg. The company made a profit of $160 million in 2015, according to its annual report.
State taxpayers gave the company $5.5 million in a grant – not a loan – Thursday (thanks to a vote from the State Funding Board) to help it transform Peabody Place from a retail space to an office building.
The Memphis company also hopes to get that $1 million gift from the CCDC, which gets it money from Downtown residents and businesses who pay a special fee.
More public funds could be given to the company as the project is on the agenda for the DMC’s Center City Revenue Finance Corp. next week. Peabody Place already has a tax break deal with the DMC and next week’s meeting could increase the amount of the deal.
Even more public funds could flow to ServiceMaster soon as the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Growth Engine (EDGE) prepares to recommend giving the company a tax break on its personal property taxes.
