Lee calls Electrolux closure ‘disappointing’
NASHVILLE – Gov. Bill Lee on Tuesday called news of the closing of Memphis’ Electrolux plant “disappointing” and pointed to the importance of clawback provisions in future economic incentive deals.
Speaking to reporters in Nashville days after a major announcement that the five-year-old appliance factory plans to shutter next year, Lee had no solution on how the state, Memphis or Shelby County could recover any of its losses, as there was no such recourse in the incentive contract.
While Tennessee economic development officials say the state provided roughly $100 million in grant incentives to the Swedish company, an analysis by The Commercial Appeal calculated the total subsidy from taxpayers and utility ratepayers to be at least $188 million.
“It’s really important we have clawbacks,” Lee said. “And it’s really important we have the ability ... and we do now. The process now for incentives is if a company doesn’t deliver on what is promised, there is an ability to retrieve those funds, and I want to make sure we do that going forward.”
The contract signed in secret in December 2010 prevented the government entities involved from “any recapture, clawback, refund or similar
remedy” if Electrolux failed to create 1,240 jobs, as the company had committed to do.
The company was not under any obligation to remain in Memphis for a specific length of time.
All of the factory’s current 530 employees are expected to lose their jobs.
Electrolux officials announced the plant, which opened in January 2014, will close late in 2020 and production will consolidate to Springfield in Robertson County. The company will spend $250 million upgrading the factory it built there in 1974.
In a statement later Tuesday, Lee’s press secretary Laine Arnold said that “an accelerated economic transformation of Shelby County is a top priority” for Lee, who would work with the Department of Economic and Community Development to see it through.
A bill filed in the Tennessee General Assembly this session — the Fair Accountability and Clarity in Tax Subsidies Act — would make public the tax incentives companies receive from the state, information that state law currently deems confidential.
Under the legislation, all companies receiving grants through Tennessee’s Fasttrack economic incentive program would be subject to clawbacks, allowing the state to recoup money for businesses not meeting their job commitments or filing employment reports on time. Mike Reicher and the Associated Press contributed to this story.