By JIMMY LAWTON

The St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency and affiliated agencies directly invested $8.7 million between 2010 and 2014 to create a net increase of 428 jobs, according to a five-year impact plan.

The IDA also assisted with the retention of 3,394 jobs, says the report, which was created by the IDA to show the return on investment made by the organization and other agencies for which it administers funding.

“In the five-year period, our direct investment in properties, training programs, and loan funds was approximately $8.7 million. This includes about $6 million in loan funds, primarily through the IDA Local Development Corporation and the River Valley Redevelopment Agency,” IDA Director Patrick Kelly said.

“We issued $112 million in bonds through the IDA-Civic Development Corporation, and provided $4.2 million in various tax incentives.”

Kelly said across the projects, which includes the work of the IDA, the IDA Local Development Corporation, the IDA Civic Development Corporation and the St. Lawrence County Microenterprise Fund, the total projected job creation for all of the projects was 308, which was exceeded by the actual job creation number of 428.

The report also shows success in growing the tax base, improving salaries and strong leveraging of funding to bring in larger grants from the state.

Big Winners

The most effective IDA investments in terms of job creation were at Ansen and Acco in Ogdensburg and at the North Lawrence Dairy.

At Acco, the IDA provided $66,460 in sales tax exemption assistance and $25,000 in training funds. The assistance helped finance completion of a $3.7 million project that resulted in the creation of 68 jobs. Kelly said that project goal was to create 30 jobs.

At North Lawrence Dairy, the IDA provided $800,000 in low-interest loans and $15,420 in mortgage recording tax exemption with a goal of creating 54 jobs. That helped the company complete an $11 million project that resulted in the creation of 61.5 jobs.

At Ansen, the IDA provided $162,000 in low-interest loans as part of a $243,000 package that also included the Ogdensburg Growth Fund, and partnered with NBT bank by providing $100,000 in loan funds as part of a $200,000 credit package. While marked as a retention project, the funding helped create 92 jobs.

Other large job gains came from funding projects for Canton-Potsdam Hospital with 36, Clarkson University with 20, Corning with 25, DeFelsko with 17, Kinney Drugs with 15, Purine Pharma with 16, St. Lawrence University and Slic Network Solutions with 22.

Less Success

Of course, not all stories end with success.

Some major job losses came in the health care sector, despite efforts from the IDA to keep the struggling organizations solvent.

Gouverneur Hospital was issued an $11.2 million bond with no planned job creation. However, E.J. Noble completed the project, but subsequently closed. According to the report, the hospital lost about 60 jobs directly following the project. The hospital later became part of the St. Lawrence Health System, which includes Canton-Potsdam Hospital.

Kelly said that although there are fewer jobs now, the bond was paid off and the community has an operating hospital with vastly improved facilities.

The IDA also provided a $150,000 loan as part of a $450,000 package with North Country Alliance and the Development Authority of the North Country, to help assist with the rebuilding of the hospital’s health clinic. The job had not intended to create new jobs, but about 20 jobs were lost in the wake of the project.

Increased Tax Base, Salaries

According to the report, the IDA was successful in expanding the tax base, improving salaries and leveraging funding for larger grants.

Kelly says that the pre-project assessments of the 15 projects undertaken that resulted in new facilities or expansions was $15.3 million. The current assessed value of these projects is now $37.2 million, representing an increase of $21.9 million.

IDA Payment in Lieu of Taxes (“PILOT”) payments on the projects which qualified for such assistance will result in $815,624 in new revenues to the local communities, schools, and county, according to the report.

Only about half of the new building projects received PILOT assistance; the rest are already fully on the tax rolls, and represent an immediate increase to the property tax base of the county, the report says.

Annual payrolls for the companies that received assistance increased by $22.4 million and led to 333,571 feet of new building space, according to the report.

This includes 82,420 square feet of industrial space, 52,297 square feet of healthcare space, 43,550 square feet of educational space, 53,560 square feet of hotel space and 95,744 square feet of rental housing space.

While $9.6 million in public funding was directly invested in the form of grants and loans, the value of the projects undertaken totaled nearly $260 million.

In the five-year period from 2010 to 2014, the IDA participated in over 120 projects with a total value of $259,770,609.

In the past five years, the county has spent an average of $400,000 supporting the IDA’s activities. This funding provides approximately 30 percent of the IDA’s cross-organizational operating funds and is matched with other contract funding sources, as well as internal IDA funds, to support the operations and project activity which leads to the results discussed in the report.

Project sizes ranged from the single thousands of dollars for microenterprise loans and grants up to large bonding, infrastructure and industrial projects in the tens of millions of dollars.

Reporting on Investment

Kelly said the five-year impact report was generated as a way to show and track the work performed by the IDA.

“IDA and the other affiliated organizations wanted to do a comprehensive report on the project performance and result of our activities. We report on these activities and our active projects as separate organizations every year, but wanted to look at the impact of the projects over time period (in this case five years) to demonstrate the result of our activities,” he said.

“Ultimately, our work is designed to assist the employers, entrepreneurs and other business development entities in the County and we thought providing a sum