The Chesterton Tax
Abatement Advisory Committee will meet at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 20, at
the municipal complex, 1490 Broadway, to conduct its annual review of the
tax abatement granted to Long Term Care Investments II LLC (LTCI), the owner
of the Addison Pointe Health and Rehabilitation Center at 780 Dickinson
Road.
Note: the meeting
will be held at the municipal complex at Broadway and 15th Street, not
at the town hall.
There is no public
hearing involved in this annul review, but the public is welcome to attend
with its comments and questions.
At issue: whether
LTCI has complied over the last year with the terms of the 10-year tax
abatement, specifically, whether the company has hired enough people to
staff the Addison Pointe facility and whether it’s making a sufficient
effort to hire Town of Chesterton residents.
LTCI originally
applied for the tax abatement with the understanding that Addison Pointe
would hire 100 persons with a total annual salary of $4,071,600.
Last year at this
time, the committee was told that Addison Pointe employed 137 employees, 17
or 14 percent more than the number to which LTCI committed.
The total payroll,
on the other hand, was $3,838,795, or 5.1 percent less than that pledged in
the statement of benefits.
Meanwhile, there
was a total of 148 hires in 2013, following 11 separate advertisement in
four different sources, including the Chesterton Tribune and the Town
of Chesterton’s municipal website.
Those 148 were
hired out of 305 total applications; and of the 305 applicants, 67 were Town
of Chesterton residents, about 22 percent.
But 52 percent of
the Town of Chesterton residents who applied got jobs.