Salt Lake City-Utah economic development officials are showing how much they want to keep Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp. operating in the state by offering to give back part of what the company pays every year in corporate income, payroll, and state sales taxes – as much as $153,638 over 10 years based on current figures. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) made the offer as GSLM, a subsidiary of Kansas City-based Compass Minerals, is getting ready to invest $40 million to upgrade its 43,000 acres of evaporation ponds on Great Salt Lake to increase production of sulfate of potash, along with salt and magnesium chloride. What attracted the state’s attention are projections from Great Salt Lake Minerals that the upgrade will result in the addition of 50 new full-time jobs to its payroll, which amounts to $16 million annually for 330 existing employees, according to GOED spokesman Michael Sullivan. Sullivan said annual salaries of the new employees are expected to be 125 percent of the area’s annual average of $32,268 in 2008, and over the life of the 10-year incentive that will add up to more than $27 million. “That’s a high-quality, family-sustaining wage (being paid by) a good corporate citizen that’s been here a long time,” he said, pointing out that the incentive sets goals the company must achieve each year. At year’s end, when the company documents it has achieved those goals, it may request the tax credit for the next year.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain