Mount Vernon says goodbye to some 450 jobs

The town of Mount Vernon is facing an economic one-two punch.

A legislative move to save its largest employer, Missouri Rehabilitation Center, fell flat in the predawn hours of Sept. 11, a day after Mount Vernon-based spice manufacturer Red Monkey Foods announced plans to move its headquarters and 128 jobs to Republic.

The expected closures represent the loss of some 450 jobs in the city of nearly 4,600 people.   

State Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville, said he was anxious to vote on the override of Gov. Jay Nixon’s $5.2 million withholding from the University of Missouri Health Center budget, but the bill got caught up in a filibuster run during the annual veto override session.

“The University of Missouri is adamant about not continuing MRC, and when the governor vetoed half of the $10 million budget, that pretty much closed their doors,” Sater said. “I was trying to override that, but it got caught up in the 72-hour abortion bill after we took a previous question. After that, the Democrats started filibustering everything, no matter what it was.

“They were not targeting that bill. They were just hot under the collar because of what had happened, and they were going to filibuster an ant crawling across the pavement.”

Sater said the good news is the Gene Taylor Veterans Affairs Clinic, which occupies 35,000 square feet of the hospital, is expected to sign a three-year lease extension. The 150-employee clinic was scheduled to close when its lease ended Oct. 31, but delayed plans for a new clinic in Springfield have halted the move for now, he said.

“The VA had kind of dropped the ball as far as extending their lease there, as bureaucracies sometimes do. We’ve got that straightened out, and they’ve committed to a three-year lease,” Sater said.

Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce President Brian George said he held little hope from the veto session because the governor had control over releasing the funds for the MRC budget. What George wants to see is the facility back in the hands of the city, so it can make every effort to keep it occupied.

“We’ve got to try and find some other party to fill it – maybe Mercy or Cox,” George said.

Sater said he’s working with MU officials to give MRC to the city of Mount Vernon through a land grant.

“This has been in the wind for about three to four years – them closing this down,” Sater said. “They have a brain-trauma injury unit there. When they first started doing brain-trauma treatment, it was the first facility in the state, but now there’s like 11 different hospitals that do that across the state.

“I hate to see 300 people lose their jobs. Maybe the city of Mount Vernon can figure something out.”

Besides the loss of jobs, George said a 107-year-old vacant rehabilitation hospital next to two schools would create a safety concern.

As Red Monkey Foods begins a $3.4 million investment in Republic’s Brookline Business Park, President and CEO Jeff Brinkhoff said the company has yet to decide if it would close down its 38,000-square-foot Mount Vernon plant.

In the headquarters move, the 60,000-square-foot new building is slated to receive 50 percent property tax abatement over 10 years provided the company meets job creation and health insurance criteria and makes a minimum $100,000 capital investment.

Red Monkey – which is in growth mode having doubled revenues the last three years to $12.5 million in 2013 – plans to move in by February.

The spice manufacturer will join the likes of Watson Metal Masters Inc., which moved from Nixa this summer in a $4.8 million capital investment plan approved for local and state incentives, as well as Ashley Furniture HomeStore and RepMo Warehouse.

“It’s a loss for Mount Vernon, but I understand they’ve got to do what’s best for them,” George said, noting the 12-year-old Red Monkey Foods first started in a family farm in Golden City before moving to Mount Vernon. “We gained them at one time, too.”

A few jobs could be retained by two retailers expanding in the Lawrence County town.

Next month, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) plans to open its scaled-down 70,000-square-foot Supercenter in town, adding around 150 jobs, and Orscheln Farm and Home also is breaking ground for a store.

“We’re Mount Vernon. We’re resilient,” George said.